Today has been a day to catch up on things, including the spankings that I have been going without lately. Although trips up north for Crimson Moon and Our Need And Desire parties did a lot towards making up for lost time in that area, too.I want my readers to know that this laps wasn't due to laziness or disinterest. It was just me not having access to my computer. When I get myself settled somewhere permanent, then please know that regular entries will be forthcoming. Again, my sincerest apologies.
Then, as now, baseball managers liked to set the rotation so that their best guy was pitching when the other team's best guy was pitching. The Cardinals had their ace on the mound, the imposing and intimidating Bob Gibson. The Dodgers started with Sandy Koufax, who was maybe the best left handed pitcher of his time (or any time). Unfortunately, I have no conscious memory of this game. It's enough for me to know that I stood in the same ballpark with such greatness. The Cardinals went on to win the World Series that year, beating the Yankees. Cardinal broadcaster, Mike Shannon, still lists his home run off of Whitey Ford (the Chairman of the Board) as one of the highlights of his career. After attending my first game, I was hooked. My dad patiently taught me the rules and also how to keep score. Back then, very few games were on television. You mostly heard games on the radio. It's one of my sweetest memories; sitting at the table eating ice cream while a game played on the radio and my dad cleaned his golf clubs. I developed a lifelong love of Cardinal baseball and their great players and traditions. Now don't panic. Among all this baseball talk, I will get to the spanking portion of this entry, I promise.
I kind of 
Matt, or Matty Mo as he was better known to fans, might just be one of us. Who else but a 
When he caught Matty Mo, he sometimes had to slow him down because he liked to pitch fast; just get the ball back and throw the next pitch. Sometimes, he wouldn't even wait for the sign. He would throw. And then Mike would peel his mask off and glare at him. I actually got to meet Mike in 2004 when a 
Now I know it's hard to tell from this picture, but trust me, Mark was a dyed-in-the-wool babe. The real deal. At 6'9" he was one of the tallest players in the game. Like most left handed pitchers, Mark was a flake. He had the quirky personality that most lefties have. My fantasies about him started when I saw him scold a female reporter for asking a question he felt was out of bounds (because it didn't happen on the baseball diamond). Oh my...hello, Mark. Because of the way he pitched, line drives often came right back at him. He once took a line drive off the bat of one of the National League's hardest hitters right in the ass and later, jokingly gave his 
Mike 
Matt 
This photo of me, with some of my mother's irises, was taken on May 25, 1979 according to the note on the back. It was taken the day before I graduated from high school. The road was wide open back then. I had my whole life ahead of me, which my mother often told me. The funny thing is, at about this time, I had a boyfriend who loved to photograph me. I think he took this photo. I had been trying for almost a year to get him to spank me. I'd tried everything, including come right out and telling him that was what I wanted. He was 20 at the time and a college boy. "Your dad did that to you" he told me. "I didn't know you were a psychology major," I quipped. "I thought you were majoring in business?" "I am," he said as we stood in my mother's pantry (for privacy). "Well then why don't you mind your own?" I asked. Now think 
This photo was taken in June, 1977 at my grandparents' place in Missouri. They had retired there in the early 70's. My grandfather built their beautiful home on Table Rock Lake. In the photo, I'm sitting on my grandfather's woodpile, giving the thumbs up. A few days earlier, I was caught by my grandmother necking with a boy on this very woodpile. He was a boy that my grandparents had approved of; a good, clean Christian boy. She was forced to change her mind about him when she caught him with his hand in my shirt and his tongue working my mouth. She was shocked to put it mildly. I think she came pretty close to having her second coronary. I was 16 and he was 17. I was 
By the time I was 21 (when this photo was taken) I was quite a bit more experienced where men was concerned. I had learned that most men didn't appreciate subtlety. They needed to be hit over the head with a 2X4. At the time this picture was taken, in March, 1982, I was dating a guy who worked at his dad's auto glass business. I had no idea how much pressure he was under working for his dad, who was very demanding. I had wanted him to spank me for as long as we'd been dating. At that time, Bradley was playing in the NIT (a tournament they would win with a great game at Madison Square Garden) and since the boyfriend was an alum, we got tickets to the games that were played at home. You can just see the little apple sticker on my shirt. Those were sort of like a rallying thing with fans. We'd had a heated argument the day before this photo was taken and, I'm ashamed to say, that he'd blacked my eye with a hard slap. I'm using make up to cover it in the photo. I felt very confused by him. I couldn't get him spank me, but he had no problem hauling off and slapping me in the face hard enough to give me a shiner. I found out later from a mutual friend who also dated him that his father had beaten his mother on a few occasions. I knew I wanted no part of a relationship with a man like that. So I began to think of ways to extricate myself from this situation. I wasn't sure how I felt about him at that point. It's been so many years that I'm not even sure I can remember what I was feeling. I remember a few days later he actually did spank me. But it wasn't the kind I wanted. We'd been invited to a couple of friends' place for a little party to celebrate Bradley's NIT win and we had been to the grocery store to pick up some cold cuts and beer for the party. We actually got into an argument because I wanted to keep the stuff at my house until the party and he asked what was wrong with his place. "Nothing" I said. "Here, take the stuff to your place. 
Don't let the innocent smile fool you. I was in the middle of a big time rebellious streak. I had let my grade in History (a required course) fall to a low C because I hated the teacher. That had never been a problem before. I was listening to KISS music, which really worried my parents. I was also beginning to drink and smoke pot at this time. However, my parents saw this for what it was--my attempt to show them that I was going to make my own decisions from now on. They didn't sit around wringing their hands and wondering what they had done wrong. My dad was very no-nonsense about the whole thing. He told me "You'll either snap out of it or get tired of standing up all the time." I was determined to tough him out and he was just as determined to reign me in. To do this, he used his favorite weapon, the leather belt from his Marine Corps uniform. Here's a pic of my mother and dad when he was on leave. Yes, that's THE belt he's wearing.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not going to start crying about how bad I had it under my dad's roof growing up. I knew I was loved by both he and my mother. It was just a different time. I think my mother was very wise. She knew that the less of a big deal they made out of my little rebellion the quicker it would pass. My dad had other ideas. He knew I was smart; probably the smartest of all his kids. He didn't want me throwing away a a chance to make something of myself. As a Marine he'd learned to value honor. What did it say about me when I was lying, stealing and drinking under age? I remember him once standing in front of me, hands on hips, trying to talk some sense into me while I sat there at the table looking bored. By this time, I was smoking cigarettes (a habit I would continue until I was 45), having sex with boys I hardly knew, ditching school and, when I was caught, ditching detention. In fact, my dad knew I'd had a detention on this particular night and demanded to know why I wasn't at school serving it. That's what had precipitated the little pow wow with Dad. He wasn't the kind to beg or try to make me feel guilty about it by telling me how hard he was working. What he did was lay it out for me. There would be no more cutting class. I was to bring that History grade back up to a B (at least). I was to stop listening to "that God forsaken" KISS. I was going to buckle down and keep my nose to the grindstone. Six months previously, I had been so enthusiastic about my grades that I had been gunning for early graduation the following year. "You're gonna settle down and fly right," he said, shaking his finger at me for emphasis. "Before you blow the whole thing." He knew my life's ambition was to be a writer. I'd wanted to work as a newspaper writer from the moment I knew that such things existed. I remember how he sighed heavily (as he usually did when he was really steamed) and paced back and forth in front of me. I looked at my feet, trying any way I knew to avoid having to look at him. I knew, deep down, he was right. He was always right. "I know one thing for sure," he went on. "You're grounded, young lady, until that C comes up. You can do better than that." I opened my mouth to protest, but he shook his head at me, indicating that it would be wise for me to keep my mouth shut until he was done talking. "I mean it. You're not leaving this house except to go to school. You're gonna learn to snap shit!" "Snap shit" is a Marine Corps expression. It means to stop messing around and start doing what you're supposed to be doing. He sat down next to me and said "Do you think life gets easier when you get older? It doesn't. It gets harder. It's a lot harder without a high school diploma." "I'll get my diploma!" I snapped. "You make a C sound like the end of the world." "When your brother would get C's I'd be happy," he told me. "But you're better than that. You think I want you waiting tables your whole life? You're gonna get that C up, little girl. And you're gonna stop cutting class and ditching detention. If you get another one for ditching this one, then you're gonna serve 'em both. You're gonna take what you've got coming. You hear me?" Boy, did I hear him. Then he left for work. Three nights later, I snuck out of the house and stole his bottle of Jim Beam. I knew, even as I was doing it, that it was wrong. I had a very strong conscience back then and still do. I sat glumly at the park with my friend, Lucy as we emptied the bottle. "My dad's gonna skin me alive," I told her. She had known me a long time and knew my dad well. "Yep, when he finds out, I wouldn't be you for nothing." Some friend. The previous year, 
I asked the nurse "Why am I a fall risk?" Now I was a total klutz and have tripped and fallen plenty of times over the years, but the bracelet was somehow insulting. She said "Hon, you've had Atavan and Dilaudid. You may not feel lightheaded, but if you should try to get up and walk, you would probably hit the deck. It'll just help us take better care of you." She smiled at me reassuringly. I liked her immediately. She would take wonderful care of me over the course of that night. A little while later, she advised me to order some dinner. It was after 4 o'clock and I had not had any food all day. I picked up my phone to order and the operator had to check to see what kind of diet the doctor had ordered for me. She told me I was on the cardiac diet. I ordered an open faced roast beef sandwich, mashed potatoes, green beans and some pudding. Also a Sierra Mist, which I drank the whole time I was there. I laid there and rested while I waited for my tray to arrive. The pain dissipated somewhat as I ate. I made sure to eat slowly though because I didn't want to puke it all up. Being sick is the thing I hate and dread more than anything in the world. Shift change had happened but my friendly nurse was still there for some reason. When I asked why she was working over, she said the third shift nurse had called off and she had volunteered to stay. Later, I would be glad this angel of mercy was with me. She was in my room every half hour asking "How's your pain,Cheryl?" I had to admit it was getting a lot worse and I was beginning to feel short of breath. She went to report this to the doctor, who I still hadn't seen yet. The doctor was ordering pain medication without even seeing me. She returned swiftly with a hypo which she told me was Morphine and asked if I'd ever had it. Yes, I had it after my hysterectomy. In fact, I had a pump where I could hit a button and get a hit every half hour. I'd loved it because it had taken away my pain without making me sick the way Demerol did. She began to push it slowly into my IV so that I wouldn't have that dreaded "head rush" which I hate so much from pain meds. She told me the lab had been alerted and someone was coming down to take two vials. One was to check my cardiac enzymes again and another one for a test called a dedimer. This test checks for blood clots. The dedimer test wasn't conclusive, however, because you can have an elevated level just from having an IV, which I did. Twice she had given me this awful tasting concoction that was supposed to help raise my potassium, which was low. The guy from the lab arrived and, without much preamble, found a vein and drew the required two vials of blood. I was aware now that I'd had a lot of blood draws already and the needles now stung as they went in. I admitted to my nurse after the lab guy left, that I was afraid. I didn't want to have a blood clot in my heart or lung. She told me to just relax. A STAT order had been placed on my test and the results would be back in minutes. When they arrived, the news was bad. My cardiac enzymes were elevated and my potassium was still low. By this time, there were five people in my room, including, finally, the doctor. He was tall and trim, just like the ER doctor. He was attractive and efficient. He spoke to me like a person. "Cheryl, your cardiac enzymes are elevated. Not a lot, but enough that I'm concerned based on how long standing your pain is." He listened to my heart and took my blood pressure, which was very high. He asked me if I knew what an angiogram was. Sure, I knew. It's where you inject me with radioactive contrast, thread a catheter through my femoral artery and look at my cardiac arteries. Cigi had had one a few years ago and so had my roommate before his bypass surgery. I took care of his wound (because he's diabetic). I knew how risky and painful they were. He wanted to do one. He said he wanted to see what my arteries were doing and if there was any damage to the heart muscle. I said "OK" and the doctor gave me a consent form and a pen. Saying a silent prayer, I signed it. He told me I would be going to the Cath Lab shortly. I'd never been inside a Cath Lab before but I was so scared and in so much pain I didn't care what they did to me as long as, when it was all over, I was out of pain. Two men, one of them ruggedly handsome, came into the room with a metal table on which was resting a plastic yellow sheet. I asked what the plastic was for and the handsome one said that sometimes, when the dye is injected, people pee themselves. The plastic sheet makes it easier to clean up. Wow. This was good to know but I was mortified by the thought of peeing in front of a good looking doctor and his ruggedly handsome assistant. They got me on the table, which was freezing cold, and began to wheel me to the lab. All the while, the doctor is giving me the odds of certain things happening. One of them, an arterial bleed, was given as 1200 to 1. When I arrived in the lab, I understood why the table had been so cold. The room was freezing. It was so cold that my teeth were chattering and my legs and arms were shaking. The doctor explained that the room was cold due to all the sensitive equipment and because I would become really hot when the radioactive dye was injected. I would be grateful, he assured me. He asked his assistant (the handsome one) to give me some Verced. A female nurse was there, too, helping the doctor put plastic sheeting over the flouroscope (the X-ray machine that would allow him to see my artieries). The handsome guy pushed the Verced into my IV. "I'm giving you some Verced, Cheryl," he told me. "It's to put you into twilight sedation. You won't care about too much after I give you this." Before it hit, the doctor asked me where the scars on my pudendum had come from. Because I'm in the spanking scene, I keep my hoo haw shaved. Otherwise, he would never have seen the scar. I explained that I'd been born with a hernia and had had it operated on when I was two years old. He numbed the area on my groin that he was going to go in through. I felt nothing and didn't care. Verced was the best stuff in the world. The nurse patted my shoulder and let me know that she was going to inject the dye now. I would feel it and it would feel cold at first, then really hot. It felt like ice water going in. By the time it hit my heart three seconds later, I felt like I was on fire. The doctor said "You have a blocked artery, Cheryl. It's being a bratty artery, for sure." I was praying because I thought I'd just heard the doctor say I had a blocked artery. I asked "Just one?" and he said "Yep, all the others look beautiful. You have very large arteries." He explained to me that he was going to insert a stent into the artery to open it up. It was the right coronary artery, which carries blood to a large part of the heart. And it was blocked. Terrific.
However, despite how relieved I was that I wasn't going to need bypass surgery, I continued to be in severe pain as I was wheeled back to my room. My sweet, caring nurse was there waiting for me. She smiled and applied a wet wash cloth to my forehead, knowing that I was still hot from the dye. Another nurse applied a heavy sandbag directly to the wound. The pain incresed again. OK, I lied before. This was the worst pain I'd ever felt. Suddenly, I began to feel very strange. I said to my nurse "I'm gonna be really sick!" She went to get one of those vomit bags they give you and, because I couldn't raise my head (I still had to lie flat and still) she bunched up a blanket around the side of my head. "Go ahead if you need to, honey." I lost my lunch all over the place. Then I lost my bladder. The bed was soaked under me. I felt like I was going to pass out and I said so. I felt so weak. Lucky for me, my ministering angel didn't leave the room during this time. Something in how I looked made her grab the blood pressure cuff and check it. "She's crashing!" she said. I heard footsteps running away. I didn't feel THAT bad. The doctor charged into the room. It was like a scene out of "ER". "What's her pressure, Janet?" he asked. "90 over 65" she said. The doctor whisked my sheets off without ceremony and shoved up my gown, exposing my in all my sick, suffering glory. Then he did it. He pressed on my stomach. More pain washed over me like a wave. I was sure I was dying. This doctor had killed me. He wanted a CT of my belly. I was so out of it that I couldn't even sign the consent form. I had to raise my arms over my head for the scan and, for some reason, it made me feel a lot better. I was able to follow the directions I was given. The tech injected me with the contrast and I felt like I'd wet my pants again. But I knew this was the effect because Cigi had had a number of CT's. The effect didn't last very long. Neither did the test. It confirmed the doctor's worst fears: I had bled into my abdomen and the resultant hematoma (pool of blood) had ripped a hole in my peritoneum, the lining of the abdominal cavity. I heard the doctor curse under his breath and ask a nurse to get me "type and crossed for two units." I knew what this meant, too. I was going to get a blood transfusion to replace what I'd lost. I was informed of the bleed and the tear and told that I would be moving to the Intensive Care Unit. Terror gripped me and I began to cry again. The nurse patted my arm. "It's OK, sweetie. You'll be OK. They have the best people over there." I wasn't stupid. I knew that it only took a few minutes to bleed to death from an artery. They moved me swiftly to the ICU and the blood was waiting for me when we got there. We were met by Jennifer, a young ICU nurse and a man from the blood bank. He read the number from the red bracelet I'd had put on before I even got out of the CT tube. I began to think of my blood type--B postive. I told myself to do that. Be positive. It was close to midnight by now and things were quiet, except for the nurse hooking up my blood transfusion. In the ICU, I was given Fentynal for my pain every two hours. No one was asking me to rate my pain anymore. They knew it had to be bad and it was. Every movement was torture. I thought I had a high pain threshold. Everytime the young nurse lifted my gown, I whimpered because I knew she was going "appreciate" how hard my abdomen was and I knew it was going to hurt a lot. A foley was inserted into my bladder and immediately my abdomen felt less full. Getting rid of the urine took a lot of pressure off my belly. The nurse who catheterized me told me it might hurt but that she would be as gentle as possible considering what I'd already been through. At another time, I might feel self-conscious having a woman spreading my lips open and fingering my pee hole. But I was so sick I didn't care. They could have injected me with Draino and I wouldn't have cared at that point. She came in at the wrong angle the first time and it stung. She rubbed my leg. "Sorry about that, Cheryl. I'll get it this time." It slid in easily this time and immediately urine began to fill the attached bag. I let out a sigh of relief. "Better, hon?" she asked. I nodded and was rewarded with a nice shot of Fentynal. A blood pressure cuff was attached to my arm and it took my blood pressure every fifteen minutes. It was coming back up but still low. "This takes awhile," Jennifer told me. "Just rest and hit your button if you need me, OK?" Again, I just nodded. She was concerned enough to ask me "Cheryl, can you speak?" "I can but I'm so tired," I told her. Again, she patted my arm. I couldn't tell if this was respect afforded an elder or if she just empathized with her patients. "Is there anyone I can call for you, Cheryl?" she asked. "Your family?" I looked at the watch. "Not at this hour," I said. "My big sister will be here at 5 o'clock and she'll wanna see me. She'll spread the word." There weren't any phones in the ICU but the nurses would make calls for patients. The way it works in ICU is that every patient has a nurse assigned to them. That nurse is your nurse only. Unlike out on the floor, where there might be four or five nurses for 15 patients. I saw the room number on the wall--271 and noted with irony that that was the very same room I'd been in when I had visited my roommate just a month before. I never thought in a million years that when I was visiting him I would be in the exact same bed. This was one for "Ripley's". Sure enough, at 5 am my sister came into the room. Apparently, someone knew that she was my sister and had told her when she came in. She hadn't wanted Kathy to see my name on the board when she came in to clean the rooms. She wanted to make sure I was OK. My new nurse told her I was stabilizing but not out of the woods yet. My big sister, who's so stoic that her childhood nickname was General Patton, was crying. "I just lost my other sister" she said quietly. "I know" the nurse said understandingly. They brought me Fentynal and ice chips at regular intervals. I couldn't have any solid food (as if I wanted any) just in case another test was ordered. My memory is a bit hazy but I remember having pillows placed under me and being turned so they could see the lividity my internal bleed had caused. Because I was lying flat, the excess blood settled in my back and bottom. Just being breathed on, let alone moved, was excrutiating. When I would cry out from being handled, the nurses would rub my shoulder and say "There, there, sweetie. It's almost over. We just have to see how bad the bruising is. I know it hurts to be moved but it has to be done." When they were done with their examination, one of the nurses came back with some warmed up baby lotion and massaged my back and bottom (yeah, I got aftercare in the hospital). The pampering was nice. For five years, it had been all about Cigi and what I could do to make her clean and comfortable. Then I had been caregiver for my roommate, an assignment that never should have fallen on me in the first place. Now it was about me for a change. I know this sounds selfish, but I relished the attention and made no secret of the fact that I ate it up. I never got pampered like I did in the ICU.Unfortunately, the vampires were still coming to draw my blood every four hours, no matter the hour. Most were gentle but some weren't. When the pain overwhelmed me, I cried. I had been through the wringer so I thought I deserved to indulge myself. I'm not a crier by nature, but I defy anyone to go through what I'd been through and not shed a few tears. Between the pain and the fear that I might die, I did a lot of silent crying and praying. Later that morning, I was resting quietly, waiting for my pain meds, when the doctor who had wanted to discharge me walked by. When he saw me, he did the double take of all double takes. He pushed the glass door aside and came in. "What happened to you?" he asked. "I had a blocked artery," I said. "I had a heart attack and then an arterial bleed and then a peritoneal tear. I'm feeling pretty miserable." He didn't come right out and say it, but the expression on his face said "I screwed up big time." "Are you gonna be OK?" he asked. I shrugged. "I hope so." He was clearly uncomfortable so he said he hoped I felt better soon and left.