Lost and Found

Because I have been diabetic since I was a child, I have worn a medical alert bracelet for many, many years.  Several years ago, I wanted something a little more stylish and petite than the standard, clunky bracelets offered through most drug stores.  I found an online organization called Lauren's Hope who sold bead bracelets to match various outfits; the bracelets attached to a slim medical alert tag that did not overwhelm my small wrist.

The bracelet from Lauren's Hope had two drawbacks: the bracelet itself was 14K gold (which was good) and thus cost $80.00 (which was bad).  The medical alert tag that went with the bracelet, sadly, was the standard silver color.  I have never worn silver jewelry, so although I could get the bracelet in yellow gold, the tag itself did not match.

I solved that problem by going to the jewelry teacher at the college where I taught.  She ordered a petite gold medical alert tag and engraved it with "Diabetic" and "No Sulfa," the two things that I would want ER people to know about me in an emergency.  Throughout the years, I found a need for a "back up" second tag after I lost (and then found) the original tag.

The original Lauren's Hope bracelet with
14K gold beads still works fine.

This seems to be my year for temporarily misplacing the medical alert bracelets and tags.  While Stephanie was moving from her old house this spring, I lost one of the bracelets at her house while helping her pack.  OK.  Sad, but I had a back up.  Two weeks later I was at her house helping her pack more, and I lost the second bracelet.  Dang! I was five hours from home with no back-up medical alert identification!

I should mention that during the years since my initial purchase of the gold bracelet from Lauren's Hope, I discovered that I could make my own beaded bracelets to go along with the tags.  I now have 45 additional bracelets in numerous colors to match a variety of outfits. I also have a smaller collection of bracelets in Florida.

My collection of alternate bracelets keeps
my options open.

As the movers came to Stephanie's house to load her possessions onto the trucks, Rick found the first bracelet I lost buried in Stephanie's basement carpet.  The clasp that held the bracelet together came undone, and the bracelet slipped off my wrist as I was moving boxes around.  That same day, Stephanie found my second lost bracelet that had slipped from my wrist due to a faulty mechanism and had landed in a bathroom drawer.  OK, I was back in business.

This past Sunday, I mowed the front yard of our house.  Unknown to me, the crimping bead that holds the bracelet together broke and the bracelet fell into the grass.  After I had finished mowing the lawn, we ate dinner and then went for a walk through the neighborhood.  Only as we settled to watch TV for the evening did I notice that the bracelet was missing.  I had no idea if I had lost it earlier shopping at Kohl's or if it was in the yard or in the streets of the neighborhood.

Rick and I took a second walk around the neighborhood looking for the bracelet.  Why spend all of that time for a bracelet that costs only a few dollars in materials?  Because the engraved tag would cost me anywhere from $200 - $400.  I could think of many, many other things I could buy for that money.  Sadly, retracing our steps yielded nothing but a bit more exercise for us.

On Monday we both walked through the front yard but found nothing.  Rick decided that he would rent a metal detector since he also wanted to locate our northern property lot stake.  As he was backing out of the driveway, he saw our neighbor Gary who collects and sells minerals and rocks to jewelry manufacturers.  Rick asked Gary if a metal detector would locate a 14K gold bracelet.  He assured Rick that it would, and then he offered to let us use his metal detector to search the yard.

I was convinced that the bracelet was probably lost at Kohl's or in the house somewhere, but for a few new batteries, Gary's metal detector was worth a try.  Rick had no problem finding the large metal property line stake on the northern perimeter of the property.  His search of the front yard, however, found little but the assurance that we have metal pipes connecting our house to the utilities in the street.

Rick asked what route I had taken to bring the lawnmower from the backyard shed into the front yard.  I told him, and he left to search the back yard.  I had little hope that he would find anything.

I was wrong.  Within a couple of minutes, he came back with my medical alert tag and the wire that used to hold gold and purple beads.  He said that he could not find any of the tiny beads (some of which were just seed beads), but he found the most important and most expensive part.  I was amazed.

The missing tag that Rick found in the back yard.

So we thank our neighbor Gary for allowing us to use his metal detector.  I thank my husband for being persistent (or perhaps just cheap) for continuing to hunt until he found my lost bracelet.  And as for the missing beads?  I hope that some bird has found them buried int he grass and has a new, beautifully decorated nest.