Recipes for Living Scott and HopeJohnson

I was born in Bristol, Tennessee to William and Pamela Nelson on Friday the 13th of August. I suppose one remarkable thing about my life is how many times I have moved. By the time I was a freshman in high school the family had moved 13 times. We'd lived in Tennessee, Illinois, Nebraska, and Iowa. My father has been involved in many occupations resulting in our frequent relocation. Making so many changes and having to develop new relationships everywhere we went, may have given me the advantage of learning to adjust.

My dad worked many jobs to put himself through college. He received both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in history from the University of Northern Iowa. Throughout the years, in order to support his family, he taught high school history for two years, did factory work, and sold insurance for a short while. He later worked for Grandfather in his factory where they built Duralifts and Scamps, which are self-contained units that have lift buckets similar to those used by telephone repairmen. He would have preferred a teaching career, but in the '70's the salary was not enough to support a family of five. He and Mom preferred that she stay home to raise the children- myself and two younger brothers, Justin, 6 1/2 years younger, and Zachariah 4 1/2 years younger.

Our family's move to Fort Dodge was during the last quarter of my freshman year, and I was very unhappy. I had been in high school, but in the Fort Dodge school system, ninth grade was part of junior high. I felt that I had been taken away from all my friends and demoted at the same time. It took me awhile to realize that I had an opportunity for a fresh start in a bigger community, and particularly in high school where their system had much more to offer. Scott was also in my class and I knew who he was, but I thought he was very immature and paid no attention to him.

My parents now live relatively close, in Ankeny. Dad is the Human Resources Director for Tones Spice Company. While they still lived in Fort Dodge, Mom began working with my grandmother painting the interior of homes. She had always been interested in decorating and design and for a short time she had her own business making items for sale. Trying to keep up with what people wanted became too much so now she has pursued her interest in floral design. She went to school for two years at DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College) and is a Master Floral Designer. She works at Irene's Flowers in Des Moines and enjoys it very much. However, she continues to contemplate owning her own store which would specialize in angels. It has been as much fun to see her set and accomplish her goals as it has been for Scott and me to be in the process of accomplishing ours.

I was born in Scott's Bluff, Nebraska to Russell and Evelyn Johnson. My father was employed by Farmland Industries as the chief chemist for an anhydrous ammonia plant. He was transferred to Fort Dodge when I was three months old. Mom stayed at home with me and my two older brothers. Curtis is six years older; Jeff is four years older.

Curtis is a self-employed entrepreneur. When he finished school he worked in construction but its seasonal nature didn't give him the year-round work he needed. He had a friend in Texas and decided to go there for one winter, which has now become 22 years. He started detailing cars for Hertz, Avis, etc. He sold that business and began selling siding, which grew into selling windows, and now he’s a real estate investor. He is also a guide for goose hunters in Texas. His wife, Elizabeth, is a flight attendant with American Air lines. They have three children- two boys and a girl- Nicholas, Samilynn, and Michael.

Jeff started to college but then decided to go into the military. He enlisted and scored in the top 2% of all the people in the Air Force. He spent 18 months in the Philippines and came back to the States, to Arizona. He didn't like what he was doing and wanted to cross-train into air trafficking. That wasn't allowed so he left the Air Force and is now a teaching professional at a country club in Mesa, Arizona.

Mom stayed at home until I was a freshman in high school. She felt then that she had fulfilled her role for her children and now she could do what she wanted. She became an advertising executive, putting together ads for a shopper. She grew tired of all the hours required for that job and now works for the school system in the food service department. She goes to work about 7:00a.m., is home about 1:00 p.m., and doesn't have to take her work home with her. This job gives her a chance to chat with the kids going through the line. She likes to tease and they like to tease her back. Mom loves to visit and is good at making people feel comfortable. She can get anyone talking.

Dad retired in 1999 after 38 years of being a chemist with Farmland Industries. At his retirement party there were over 150 people from all walks of life. Both Mom and Dad golf and Dad is very involved with Sertoma, International. Today he enjoys hunting, fishing, and being with friends. My parents are also very involved in their church.

My life was really quite uneventful. I grew up in Fort Dodge and lived in the same house all my life. I went all through the Ft. Dodge school system- elementary, junior high, and high school. When I was younger, my dad and I had a nightly ritual of going down to the Des Moines river to fish until dark. In high school I ran track and played football. I ran in the Drake Relays and qualified for the same track meet two times. In my senior year I placed fourth in the 10 meter high hurdles.

I had an older friend, Bill Becker, a retired high school physics teacher, who lived down the street from us. He retired when I was three or four years old and as long as I can remember I went to spend hours at his house. He was an inventor, a toy maker, who used to call himself a Tinkerpudnit. His wife, Hilda, often called Mom to tell her not to get upset I didn’t eat lunch because we had just had a snack. Those snacks were pretty hefty.

Mr. Becker may have had something to do with my curiosity about how things work. When I was five years old I wanted to know how my bicycle worked so I took it apart, down to the wheel bearings. Dad helped me and I learned how to put it back together. I learned most by watching, such as sitting on the fender watching my dad work on the car. I usually have five or six projects going at once. I don't like to sit. Neither Hope nor I are good sitters.

When we were sophomores in high school, I asked Hope to go to the winter dance. We dated throughout the rest of high school, and after graduation in 1984, both of us went to Iowa Central Community College to get our AA (Associate of Arts) degrees. We graduated in 1986. I went on to Mankato State with the intention of becoming a physical therapist. They changed the program and I became disenchanted with all the politics involved in the requirements for that career. I changed majors to biology and received my BS in biology teaching.

Hope picks up the story: I went to the University of Northern Iowa beginning with my junior year. My major was speech-language pathology, which I had chosen in high school, possibly because I had been the interpreter for my younger brother, Zack. It seems so important to me that everyone be able to communicate. I earned my BA degree in 1988 and MA in 1991.

There were lots of phone calls between us while Scott was at Mankato and me in Cedar Falls. Scott proposed at Thanksgiving time during my junior year in college. We had a nice long engagement. We were married in Fort Dodge on October 13, 1990, on my grandparents' anniversary.

Scott and I didn’t live together until November when we took an apartment in Indianola. We both commuted - Scott to Osceola where he taught seventh grade science, and I to Des Moines to intern at Iowa Methodist. We moved to Osceola in August 1991, and rented the blue house across from the Methodist parsonage. We later bought a house at 209 North East Street.

On January 3, the first baby to be born in Clarke County in 1993 was our son, Caleb. We knew we were living in a small town when the first baby was not born until the third. That morning I felt fine so Scott left for a pheasant hunting trip with Brad Lampe, expecting to be home at noon. I began sensing that noon might not be soon enough and called Amy Lampe to
tell her it would be good if she sent Scott home as soon as he got back. We made it to Iowa Methodist at 3:00 p.m. and Caleb was born at 4:57. We were pleased that Scott’s mother, Evelyn, and Caleb have the same birthday.

Caleb was so easy to deliver but then the difficulty began. He and I spent a week at the hospital because he was jaundiced. Lots of babies go through this for a few days but he went through a week under the bilirubin light, which is an ultra violet light that breaks down the bilirubin chemical in the blood. They sent us home with a bilirubin light that he had to stay on for another week, 24 hours a day. We went to the hospital every morning. Scott gave a pint of blood in case it would be needed. It was a very scary experience for new parents and the worst was yet to come.

At two months I took him to Dr. Lower because he had a little cold. Dr. Lower began asking some questions that seemed strange when I thought the only problem was a runny nose. How is he sleeping? Do you put him on his back to sleep? Dr. Lower thought there was something wrong and felt a specialist should look at him. By time we left the office, we had an appointment set up with the pediatrician and a pediatric neurosurgeon.

The specialist agreed and a CAT scan confirmed that the soft spot on back of Caleb's head was fused over 80% which, if not corrected, would prevent the brain from continuing to grow. There could be eye problems because of where it was, and mental retardation was a certainty if he didn’t have surgery for correction of the problem, lambdoidal craniosynostosis.

When Caleb was three months old, surgery was set up, but the day before surgery, we had a call from Dr. Johnson, our pediatrician. We needed to talk with him immediately. He informed us that the insurance company regarded this operation as cosmetic and they weren't going to cover the cost. The next two months were consumed by daily discussions with a variety of people at the insurance company. What did they need from us or the doctor to have this covered?

We took Caleb to Iowa City to Dr. Arnold Meneses, a world renowned neurosurgeon. He took a look and wondered why the insurance company would say that the surgery wasn't needed. Caleb was already showing effects of the fusing. His eyes and ears were already moving out of position. He recommended that we see an attorney immediately. "Somebody needs to go after the insurance company!" But even though his was our second opinion, his letter to the insurance company accomplished nothing. They still insisted it was cosmetic surgery. We went through the roughest two months of our lives. It was a daily ordeal.

We finally enlisted the help of John Lloyd who wrote a very persuasive letter to the insurance company. Two days after John sent the letter, I had call from their office! They thought, after being threatened with a lawsuit, that they might be so kind as to take another look. I called and called and finally got a woman with whom I could talk frankly. I discovered that the problem was that the company had no policy for dealing with this. Caleb's was their first case. We had to wait while they were fooling around with their policies.

There was a time frame involved. We had been set for the procedure when Caleb was three months old and had been told that surgery had to be done before he was six months old. At that point we were still within the allotted time. Finally an insurance man got back to me and Caleb had his surgery - after another nightmare. I had a premonition that something might happen. I knew that the anesthesiologist was a most important person and asked about him. We were assured that this guy was fine. We met him. He talked about what he was going to do.

On the day of the surgery our families were gathered in the waiting room. Our pastor, Judy Miller, had come. Caleb was gone about 1 1/2 hours when the nurse came to say the doctors needed to talk to us. We were told that when the anesthesiologist was injecting the anesthetic in the central line, he missed the vein and cut the main artery in Caleb's leg, which collapsed. He had lost all circulation to his leg and they were unable to continue surgery.

To get the artery restored to its normal function, they had to give blood thinners and until the blood thinners were out of his system, he couldn't have surgery. That took about two days. But there were even more complications. The day before he was to have surgery, Caleb was moved from the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) into a regular room because another patient might need that extra care. They didn't take the tags off the bed, which meant that when they came to prepare for the second surgery, there were no tags that gave the information about his blood, etc. They couldn't reissue his tags and the blood had to be rematched. All this was at 1:00 a.m. and he was supposed to have surgery at 7:00a.m. They could not find his vein, at which time I nearly lost control. It was too much! I had to walk out of the room. After three people had tried, they finally were successful and he got his tags.

The surgery and recuperation went remarkably quickly. He was released three days later. The surgeons had cut out and reversed the occipital bones. This had left an unprotected circle in the back of his head. If he had fallen it would have been disastrous! We had to try to keep him slowed down but he was full of energy, and of course he was too small to understand. Later we went to a physical therapist that fitted him with a padded helmet so that, in case he bumped his head, he wouldn't hurt himself. He looked very cute with Clarke football team stickers that Scott put on it. Finally, we were able to relax!

Caleb is now seven and this fall will be in second grade. He is doing very well. He is very bright and still full of energy. He loves to read and at the close of first grade, was reading at the third grade level. With him we always know when there is a change because he becomes very frustrated with something new. He wants everything to be perfect, and always wants to do everything perfectly so he becomes difficult to live with when he is making a new step in growth. But he's a pretty tough kid, on the go 24 hours a day. There is no slowing him down. He went to a Cub Scout day camp and on the way home, when everybody else was asleep, he was still going strong. After a day at Adventureland, we were pulling into our driveway at 6:00 at night, and he asked, "Can I go somewhere?" This summer he had his first plane ride to Dallas. As the group was going home from "Six Flags," all the other kids were sound asleep. Caleb was still awake and ready for more.

In 1996, Caleb had a baby sister, Emelia Jeanene. She was so much easier as a baby than Caleb, that we thought we had a mellow, docile daughter. She is just as active as Caleb. She was also jaundiced at birth, but responded well to a "bili blanket" we used at home. This was much improved over the equipment Caleb had. Caleb does on her and is very protective. They fight like siblings will, but if he’s not around she wonders when he is coming home. “Can we call him?” Emilia is now four and will be starting pre-school this fall, which she thinks will be wonderful. We have a good day care for her as well.

At the present time, during the 2000-2001 school year, Scott will be commuting to Norwalk, where he will teach math and continue his education by earning a Master’s degree in Administration. His mentor offered this as a way to learn more about being a school administrator. He expects to be there for one or two years and move on to an administrative position somewhere.

I commute to Leon working for Green Valley AEA (Area education Agency). We enjoy our home which we keep improving. When we first came to Osceola, I didn’t think it was for me. It didn’t seem like home. It was a long way from Fort Dodge which had been “home” for lots of years. Every summer I had spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s house and I missed their proximity. But we have discovered that his is a good place for children to grow up. Osceola has grown tremendously while we have been here. We have good neighbors who are a network, watching out for our children and we for theirs. We also have good friends through our work and church. We have been fortunate to start our families and careers here in Osceola.