April 3

Two life-changing events happened on this day; one very, very good, and the other, not so good. Twenty-four years ago today, Laz Junior was born in a small hospital in Lewisville, Texas. The bad part was, I ruined his 20th birthday by ending up in the emergency room with what was called a TIA (transient ischemic attack -- or a mild stroke). More on this later. By no means am I trying to compare the importance of both events or even try to steal a little of the Boy's thunder on his Day. I'm just being an economical blogger.

On this day in 1982, Mrs. Laz was driving me to work to the Lewisville Daily Leader where I was a big time sports writer covering high school football and important bowling leagues. Mrs. Laz and I owned a very unreliable Pontiac J2000 that was in the shop for the 30th time so we were in the more reliable, ancient Oldsmobuick that was held together by San Diego Charger bumper stickers. It was about the time Mrs. Laz was due to give birth and we had spent the previous weekend taking our doctor's advice by walking and coaxing the baby out. So when she dropped me off at work that day, I had the uneasy feeling that I would have no way to go home and get her if she went into labor (it hadn't yet occurred to us that Mrs. Laz having the only car made it difficult to get her to the hospital if she went into labor and that driving in labor is about as simple as driving and doing your taxes).

I also had an uneasy feeling about the weather. We'd had a number of tornados in the area and the weather looked a bit foreboding that morning. When I arrived at work, we had the police scanner on and it was whirling and full of activity. We could here various law enforcement personnel out on their beat following funnel clouds and tornados. Of course the scanner picked up traffic all over the region so we were careful to listen to when a tornado was spotted near us and not 50 miles away.

Unbeknownst to me, Mrs. Laz was monitoring a radio station on her way home and they were literally screaming for people to take immediate shelter as there was a tornado headed down main street after picking up the usual mobile homes and tossing them about. What Mrs. Laz didn't know is that I had set the Oldsmobuick to my eclectic taste in music and that she was listening to a station in Paris, Texas, about 50 miles north of Lewisville and 6,000 miles from France. She thought it was a local station. Well, the news was quite frightening and so she wasn't sure if she should return to home or come back to the newspaper. The thought of a tornado taking her off to Oz scared her enough that she also began to go into labor. So she did return to the newspaper only to find us completely calm in the face of the onslaught of horrific weather (we newsmen are like that in the face of danger, you know). It didn't take long for us to calm her down and tell her the tornados were well north -- although it destroyed 25 percent of Paris and killed I think about 25 people, so it was a nasty storm.

All the calming down didn't stop the labor so I dropped her off at the hospital, drove to our apartment to pick up our pre-prepared, check-listed "what happens when the baby comes" items. We went through the entire night in the hospital and, after 14 hours of labor, about nine a.m., Laz Junior came into the world. He scored well on his Apgar test (he'd been studying) and mom and baby were healthy. I was a bit injured, however, as Mrs. Laz ripped my thumb out of its joint every time she felt a labor pain. Lamaze classes say to grab hold of your partner’s hand to ease the labor pain but say nothing about breaking the thumb. It’s strange how little sympathy I got and I did a lot of complaining, too. It seems people only care about the mommy and the baby, and how are they, and are they doing well, and look how cute the baby is, blah, blah, blah. What about me? What about my needs?

Twenty years later, we all weren't healthy as I was slumping in my chair at the office. My sister-in-law noticed I looked more detached from society than normal and tried to get me to go to the hospital. I instead suggested she call Mrs. Laz and have her come get me and take me to the doctor. The doctor did a few tests and suggested I go to the hospital. I really didn't want to go because I knew that I would wait for three hours, they would tell me nothing was wrong, and I would ruin Laz Junior’s birthday.

But they didn't have me wait at all. After asking a few questions and taking my blood pressure, they put me in a wheel chair and hauled me off to the emergency room, ahead of a roomful of illegal immigrants, no less. That's when I got worried. I figured if they were breaking the sacred code of citizenship over triage need, I must be in real trouble. Suddenly I didn't feel so well.

The point of this, other than showing up Laz Junior on his birthday again, is to mention a few warning signs of stroke victims. If you see someone behaving a bit more stoically than normal, do the following three things: 1. Ask the individual to smile. 2. Ask him or her to raise both arms. 3. Ask the person to speak a simple sentence (Coherently), i.e... “It is sunny out today.” If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher. If it's your son's birthday, try to do it quickly so it doesn't interfere with the cake and presents.

(Editor’s note: I am sure I will hear from the Girl how I wrote about the Boy on his birthday but made no mention of her on her birthday. She will note the historical context of November 9, 1983, and I’m not talking about the fact that her sixth birthday landed on the same day the Berlin Wall came down. Her historical context will be one to measure the date as it relates to the birth of HER and how schoolchildren in the future will have to memorize it as they do the date of the Magna Carta and the day Columbus stumbled into the Americas. I think you’ll all feel better getting advance warning on this.)