Yesterday and today...

I didn't post yesterday because I was too sad and too overwhelmed by another horrible event playing out in the media. The Boston Marathon bombing. I sat all afternoon watching the news and alternately crying and praying for all those people who had their lives irrevocably changed in an instant by senseless violence.

It just seemed small and meaningless to post a cutesy story about how Jake brought home a stick that he found at recess to be his "stick to shake at the crayons... because, Mom, you're always saying we have more crayons then you could shake a stick at."

But then I started seeing post after post, and story after story about people rushing to the rescue. Acts of kindness and sacrifice and heroism, and I read a quote (that I can't find who to attribute it to now) that I know will always stick with me, "The good outnumber you, and we will always will."

So maybe it's not meaningless, to share the light and love and humor in my life. It's something I want for my children, to be able to face the world in all it's ugliness, and still find beauty and hope. Because the good outnumbers the bad, and it always will.

Now on to today.

Today I saw brains.

Real, actual brains that used to be inside of a human....

I am not a person for whom the medical field holds any fascination. I am incredibly grateful that there are people who are so inclined and become doctors and nurses, because I can barely handle the blood and vomit that is part of a Mom's job. But biology... not so much. I just about flunked out of my high school biology class because when you dissect a frog, his insides are not color coded. So it pretty much all looked like grey mushy stuff to me, I couldn't tell a heart from a kidney. I'm not even 100% my frog was a he, but I figured that at least I had a 50/50 shot at getting that one right.

But I digress...

Brian and I went to the Spinal Cord Injury Forum tonight. It is a six week lecture series put on by the U of U, and they cover all sorts of topics about spinal cord injuries, treatments, therapies, advancements in assistive technologies, and you get dinner. (Which I might not have eaten if I'd known we were going to be looking at brains later on...)

There was an hour long lecture, which this week was an overview of all the topics they'll be covering. Then we break off into smaller groups and get more specific information on a topic. Tonight's were anatomy (you know... the brains... Actually it was a whole brain, a brain cut in half, and a spinal cord... which is very cord-y), spinal fracture, and pressure ulcers, which had a ton of pictures I'd really rather not have seen... but also lots of good information. I'm pretty sure the doctors all thought I was at least half a nut job since I watched most of their presentations peeking between my fingers. I was mostly just grateful that I didn't pass out or throw up on anybody. Especially when the anatomy doctor started cutting into the spinal cord to show us different things.

I am glad we went and I plan on attending the whole six weeks with Brian. I am sincerely hoping that they got all the gore out of the way tonight though...