A Weekend Away From the ER

The picture at the left is called Before the Shot and it was done by Norman Rockwell. I love this picture and think it is absolutely hillarious. I love looking at the little boy with his drawers down making sure the doctor is indeed a certified doctor before he pokes him in the butt with a long sharp needle. In fact, I love all of Norman Rockwell's paintings. This weekend Lexie and I drove up to Akron Ohio to the Akron art museum to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit. It was awesome. They had a full collection of the Saturday Morning Post magazines that he had painted covers for and a bunch of original paintings as well. I just think he is so clever. You can look at a painting he's done over and over and always see something else that he put in there that you had never noticed before. Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to see all the Post pictures that he painted throughout his years working for them.

After the art museum, Lexie and I had dinner at this awesome diner. It was inside an old boxcar train. The tables were set up right inside the train and you could walk from boxcar to boxcar. We sat in a boxcar that had a cabnet with a pull down sink and pull down toilet. It was a fun atmosphere to eat dinner in. Well, maybe not the pull down toilet part now that I think of it, but it was still hillarious none the less. The toilet and sink are folded up inside that cabnet underneath the mirror at the left.
Then, we drove up to Kirtland and spent Saturday seeing church sites. Here is a picture of the Kirtland temple. It was really neat to see. It is owned by the RLDS church which is now known as the Community of Christ church, and they give the tours. So, they don't say too much about all the amazing occurances we believe took place in this awesome building, but it was still neat to go inside. And, they wouldn't let me take any pictures inside, so this is the best you get. I put myself in the picture so you can see how teeny I look compared to the huge building.
And this was the sticker I was given to wear after I paid my $2 Kirtland temple tour fee.
After the temple, we went down the to the LDS visitors center in Kirtland. On site there, they let you watch a neat video about Kirtland. Then, we had two very nice sister missionaries give us a tour of Newel K. Whitney's home, his store, and a few others things. The main story of Kirtland is that Sidney Rigdon was a Baptist minister in town there. From his studies, he firmly believed that many of the simple truths of the gospel that was set up at the time of christ had been lost. He believed that there needed to be a restoration of that gospel. Newel K. Whitney was a member of his congregation. Anyways, when missionaries came to the town of Kirtland proclaiming that they were there to teach the people about Joseph Smith who had been called as a prophet of the Lord to restore the true gospel of Christ to the earth, his whole congregation was all ears and most of them were soon baptised including Newel K. Whitney and his family. However, after the missionaries left over a hundred new converts, people started to get a little unsure of how to go about living this new gospel. So, Newel K. Whitney prayed that Joseph Smith would come to Kirtland to clear up the confusion. Joseph Smith saw a vision of Newel K. Whitney praying and decided to take off to Kirtland to see how he could help. He arrived in Kirtland, pulled up to Newel K. Whitney's store, walked in and immediately recongnized Newel K. Whitney as the man from his vision. He said, "Newel K. Whitney! Thou art the man!" Then Newel responded, "You have the advantage of me, I could not call you by name as you have me." Joseph said, "I am Joseph the Prophet. You’ve prayed me here, now what do you want of me?" Pretty cool huh? Anyways, here is a picture of Lexie and I standing of the front porch of the Whitney home where Joseph stayed for a while after he first arrived in Kirtland.
Next, is a picture of Lexie and I behind the counters of the Newel K. Whitney store. This was my favorite part of our weekend in Kirtland. The missionaries took us upstairs to the room in the store where they had held the School of the Prophets. This was where Joseph received the revelation of the Word of Wisdom as well as 16 other revelations. We sat there in this room and one sister missionary read us the following account that had taken place during one of the meetings of the School of the Prophets. It's from John Murdock and he remembers the following,“In one of these meetings the prophet told us if we could humble ourselves before God, and exercise strong faith, we should see the face of the Lord. And about midday the visions of my mind were opened, and the eyes of my understanding were enlightened, and I saw the form of a man, most lovely, the visage of his face was sound and fair as the sun. His hair a bright silver grey, curled in most majestic form, His eyes a keen penetrating blue, and the skin of his neck a most beautiful white and he was covered from the neck to the feet with a loose garment, pure white, whiter than any garment I have ever before seen. His countenance was most penetrating, and yet most lovely. And while I was endeavoring to comprehend the whole personage from head to feet it slipped from me, and the vision was closed up. But it left on my mind the impression of love, for months, that I never felt before to that degree.” Anyways, there in that room, above Newel K. Whitney's general store, I had the overwhelming feeling that my Savior loved me too, and I was so greatful to that sister missionary for sharing that account with us in the very room that it had occured so many years before.
So, now I'm back in the ER again. I had my first code. Well, it was sort of a code in the sense that I was doing chest compressions and pushing epinephrine through this guy's IV. But, I think this guy was long gone before he got to the ER. By the time he got here, there wasn't much we could do for him.

And, in other hospital news...I had my first real MI (heart attack) walk through the door. We've had loads and loads of people come in complaining of "chest pain," but this was the first guy who was real. And, he had the ST elevation on his EKG to prove it! But, we acted quickly to get some "clot busters" in him and prepared him for a life-flight up to Columbus. Luckily, by the time he had arrived in Columbus, our meds had worked, and he didn't need to be taken to the cath lab. So, he lived! As opposed to the other guy I told you about which is always nice.