The day the mountain blew

For many Northwest residents who were old enough to remember it, May 18, 1980, invokes powerful, visual memories of the destructive eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Those too close to the mountain died. Other who were close enough to the mountain could actually see the eruption, and for those east of the blast, they can remember the massive ash cloud turning the sky dark and raining ash and pumice hundreds of miles away. Our house was in the path of the ash, but like most of the rest of the nation, my family watched the events on the TV news and read about it in the newspapers.

We weren't at home when the mountain blew.

We were visiting family in Nebraska. I was 14 at the time. Why were were in Nebraska at that time of year, I can't remember. My parents couldn't remember either. As dad remembers it, we heard of the eruption when we landed in Rock Springs, Wyo., for fuel. He thinks we were headed to Nebraska when we learned the news. But given that it was a Sunday, I wonder if maybe we were heading back to Oregon, and that news of the eruption turned us back.

To this day, I have bad memories of the Rock Springs airport. We seemed to have a helluva time getting past Rock Springs on our family flights to and from Nebraska. If we were ever to have heater problems or other mechanical issues, it required landing in Rock Springs. And there was absolutely nothing for a kid to do at the Rock Spring airport, which is way the hell-and-gone away from town.

I don't remember learning about the St. Helens eruption in Rock Springs, but I remember spending extra days in Nebraska, stressing about the school I was missing as a nerdy 8th-grader who wanted to get back home and not really understanding why this mountain, thousands of miles away from where we were then, and hundreds of miles from where we were trying to go, was stopping us from getting home.

Once we did get home, days later, it was a little easier to understand. There was still ash residue at our house in Eastern Oregon. Some friends had collected some of it into jars and told stories of what had happened there the day of the eruption.

I could empathize with all those European travelers earlier this spring who were unable to travel because of the volcano erupting in Iceland. I had been there too, 30 years ago. Although we were traveling by a small private plane, life and plans had to be put on hold until the air cleared.

Until Sept. 11, 2001, there had really only been 2 dates etched indelibly in my mind as major events of my lifetime. One was the day my daughter was born. The other was the day Mount St. Helens erupted.

In the years since, particularly after my daughter moved to Portland, I've gotten a bit nervous when St. Helens goes in to her more active periods. She has a might long reach when she's angry

For my family, we suffered a little inconvenience due to the mountain's wrath. Others suffered far worse. The scar left on the mountain itself is a very visible and permanent reminder of the awesome power Mother Nature can unleash when she's so inclined. Some of the Northwest's most scenic locations are a tribute to that power -- Crater Lake, all the volcanoes of the Ring of Fire in the Cascades, massive basalt flows, the Columbia Gorge. Perhaps it's knowing there is potential fire hidden beneath the icy caps of those mountains that adds to their beauty, majesty and mystique.

Thanks, to a very special nurse

There's one nurse I appreciate above all others this National Nurses Week. I've never been her patient, but I know Monica's nursing knowledge, compassion and caring firsthand.

She's my daughter's mom. She was, and is, amazing for that one, important fact and more than 19 years of making difficult choices. She's deserving of respect and admiration for that alone. She's part of my family. Our relationship, our family dynamic, is not always easy to explain. Our relationship was not always so good or so close.

The reason I appreciate her as a nurse was a turning point in our personal relationship. Circumstances allowed me to get past a lot of old, personal baggage and see her in a new way due to her professional abilities and personal compassion.

About a dozen years ago my dad was in a serious car crash. I was living in California and got the call that my dad was in a hospital in Eastern Oregon. I could tell, even over the phone, that my mom was worried. I made arrangements to get home as quickly as I could and asked Monica if she could pick me up at the airport. She graciously accepted and drove me straight to the hospital where my dad was in intensive care.

Monica had been an intensive care nurse at another hospital. She went with me into my dad's room in the ICU. The room looked pretty much like any other hospital room, but my dad looked anything but normal.

There was a tube down his throat to help him breath. His bald head bore the unmistakable signs of road rash. He was scraped and bruised all over. His hands were puffy and swollen, so that his wedding band cut into his ring finger, turning the flesh slightly cyan. The ring would eventually have to be cut off to keep him from losing his finger.

Beside his bed hung an assortment of bags pumping fluids and drugs into his body. Monica read the labels and her face sank. And my heart sank right along with it. She could tell that he was in bad shape by the medication they were giving him. Before I could muster the courage to ask her how bad, she summoned up her nurse's professionalism and started going down the litany of things hanging on the racks, telling me in layman's terms what they were and what they did.

One was a paralyzing medication, to keep him immobile while on the ventilator. There were IV fluids and another medication to make his kidneys produce urine so the fluids didn't build up in his system, which obviously was not working too well based on his swollen, bloated appearance. The others are lost to time, faulty memory and the shock of the moment. These were intense drugs for someone needing intensive care.

He had white stocking-like things one his legs designed to prevent blood clots in people who are lying still for long lengths of time. A urine bag hung at the foot of the bed.

I don't think I've ever felt so helpless. When Monica dropped me off at my parent's house I tried to thank her for picking me up, taking me to the hospital and explaining the medical treatment. I tried to thank her for being my friend. I tried to speak but couldn't, the words caught in my constricted throat and got hung up on my trembling lips. She offered me a hug, which a gladly accepted. In her embrace I broke down, crying like the small boy my parents brought to that very house 25 years earlier.

In short order, I'd been hit with all sorts of stuff. There was the realization that my dad might not make it and I could not do anything about it. I had never stopped to consider that someday he might not be around and I might become the man of the family.

At that moment, I found that the woman entrusted with our daughter's primary care was also the person to whom I entrusted my own vulnerability and fear. She was the person I also turned to for advice for my father's care.

Dad eventually got better and was discharged from the hospital, although he didn't know I had even been there. He'd been in a drug-induced coma for much of his care. While Monica was not his nurse I am convinced that neither he, nor I, would have come out of the ordeal nearly as well without her help. Neither dad, nor I, are very good at asking for help. Lots of people helped my dad in the immediate aftermath of his crash, from the good Samaritans at the scene, to the ambulance crew, to the doctors and nurses at the hospital, to the family and friends that came to his bedside at the hospital.

When we are at our weakest, our most vulnerable, we need people to look out for our interests and our well being. Sometimes we need them to make critical decisions we can't make for ourselves. Sometimes we aren't even conscious enough to see their faces or know their names. Oftentimes those people are nurses.

I feel fortunate that my daughter, who seems to catch every bug that passed through the area, has a mom, who is a nurse, to watch over her. And I am grateful that a dozen years ago, when my dad and I needed help, Monica -- and other nurses who's names I never even learned -- were there.

Thank you, Monica, and all nurses, who give so much of yourselves to care for others.