Shelli’s Sentiments

No one will ever know how special my husband is. It doesn’t matter how much I tell you or talk about all the special things he does for me, you will still never really understand it. Our relationship is something deeply special that can only be understood by us because we are the only ones who have knowledge of and have experienced all that has made our relationship what it is today.

As amazing as he is to me as my best friend, lover, husband, companion and life partner, he is that amazing as a father as well. I could tell you all the things that make him so, but the greatest evidence, I think, is that his children (yes, Ashley, too) really love and respect him. They talk to him about things. That’s HUGE considering they are teenagers and/or young adults. They want to spend time with him. They value him.

He is the kind of man, the kind of person, the kind of husband, the kind of father that people say nice things about while he’s still alive. I know that sounds weird, but think about that. I think that it is a great testament to you if people realize what they have before they lose it.

Speaking of loss, I love you, Dad, and I miss you. Also, could you all say a special prayer for the Dawg today. It’s an especially difficult day for him.

I had a great time in Kentucky. From the minute Brad picked me up at the airport, I enjoyed myself. When I saw him, it was like we had never not ever seen each other before. I got lots of hugs from him and Liz and, really, lots of hugs all weekend from everyone!

There was lots of drinking, eating, karoake-ing, drinking, eating, dancing and did I mention drinking? And talking. Lots and lots of talking and hugging and meeting and greeting. It was really a lot of fun. Saturday afternoon, Lynda and I went shopping for a ring for her. She likes to get a ring from every place that she travels. We found 2. We enjoyed ourselves, too.

There were 4 different kinds of people there.

• There were those who I knew from blogging and had met face to face before.
• There were those whom I knew from blogging but had never touched skin with before.
• There were those that I sort of knew or knew of but had never really met online or off before.
• Finally, there were those that I never knew online or off.

Some of the people I met this weekend, whatever group they fell into, touched my heart in a special way. I’m not going to name names because I don’t want to hurt feelings. I think that they know who they are anyway. There were at least a couple people who weren’t there whose presence was greatly missed. At the very least, by me. There was not one single I met that I didn’t like. Maybe a couple who didn’t like me, but no one that I didn’t like. Any single one of the people I met this weekend would be invited to my house in a heart beat. I would be honored to have them all visit. They just need to let me know a couple weeks in advance so I can clean the house. And, yes, it would take that long.

Thank you, Brad and Liz for opening your house to us. You were awesome hosts. I couldn’t hope for a better brother and sister-in-law. I can’t wait to see you again and for you to at least meet my husband. Liz, you’re a fantastic cook. I think I gained 10 pounds. We’ll see on Saturday.

I’m just going to give you a link to my ConFab, Baby! Flickr collection instead of posting them here for a few reasons–it’s easier, those who want to see, can, and it won’t take those who have dial-up forever to load this page. So here’s the link.

Sorry it took me so long to post about this. I got home late and then had technology problems. Monday was a crazy day and I had some more technology issues with Flickr to deal with and by the time that was all done I was too exhausted and went to bed. It wasn’t because I didn’t have an awesome time. I did. I also needed to ruminate (great word, huh?) on it for awhile. It was just one of those things, y’know?

My schedule for today:

• 2:30am–Wake up and get ready to go.
• 3:00/3:15am–Leave for the airport.
• 3:00/3:15-4:00am–Drive to the airport.
• 4:00am–Arrive at the airport.
• 4:00-6:10am–Get checked in, get through security, get something to eat, get to my gate.
• 6:10am–Board flight to Chicago.
• 7:25am–Arrive at Chicago O’Hare.
• 7:25-8:10am–Get from one gate to the other.
• 8:10am–Board flight to Louisville.
• 10:20am–Arrive in Louisville. Pray to God that Brad is there to pick me up.
• 10:35am–Get bags and go to Bliss Manor with Brad.
• 11:30am–Arrive at Bliss Manor and meet Liz and Yvonne and whoever else might be there.
• Noon-5:00pm–Nap at some point. And some other stuff like going for tattoos or chatting, etc.
• Whenever during that time that I wake up-7:00pm–greet other arrivals.
• 7:00pm–Eat pizza at Bliss Manor.
• 8:00pm–Leave for Southland and some drinking and Karaoke.
• 8:15pm-1:00am–Enjoy self at Southland doing above things and having fun with friends.
• 1:00-2:00am–Return to Bliss Manor and hopefully sleep some to prepare for ConFab, Baby that night.

Are you exhausted? I am and I haven’t even experienced it yet. But it will be a good exhaustion.

Luckily, I had my brother to entertain me all day. My baby brother, Brett, makes me laugh hysterically. He is so funny and he reminds me of Sam when I’m not with Sam, just as Sam reminds me of my brother sometimes, too. They both have the same weird sense of humor. It’s good to have him in situations like these. He can also make me cry very easily. All I have to do is look at him when he has tears in his eyes. I can’t handle it when he cries. It’s like watching my own children cry, it automatically makes me cry.

Before Mom went into surgery, we were in her room and you could see people trying to use the access code to get into the parking lot from her window. Most of the people were old and couldn’t figure out the technology of a push button pad. You know, they are still used to dial phones and they have no clue what a computer is. We were all standing there watching and 9 out of 10 people couldn’t get it right. We couldn’t open the window to yell at them how to do it. So, instead we held up fingers and made a “#” sign to try to the show them. They wouldn’t listen. Or look, as the case may be. My brother was making joke after joke and I had tears from laughing so hard. My Mom was snoring in the bed. The Valium they gave her made her pretty comfortable. Which was good.

At about 9am, they took her off and we went down to the CV family waiting room. At about 9:10, we heard, “Code Blue, cardioecho lab room 2! Code blue cardioecho lab room 2!” My heart hit the floor. I went to look at the screen that tells where patients are, but it didn’t say which room she was in. As I was walking back to where my brother was sitting, the lady at the desk came up and put her arm around me and said, “Your Mom is in room 1.” Breathe. I thanked the lady for re-starting MY heart.

After almost 3 hours, they told us to go wait in the family room, that she was out of the procedure and that the doctor would be coming to talk to us soon. After about 5 minutes, the lady came and told us that he wanted us to go upstairs and that he would talk to us up there in Mom’s room. We went up there and waited another hour or so. Finally, my brother and his wife went home to get something to eat and let their dogs out. I was starving, too, but didn’t dare leave because as soon as I did, I knew he would come to talk to us. Finally, the nurse came in and said that he had gone to a meeting about an hour away and was on his way back and would be there in about 45 minutes. That gave me enough time to go downstairs/outside so I could turn my cell back on and call/text people about Mom and then get something to eat at the cafeteria. I got back up, finished eating, played on Facebook for awhile and finally, about 2 1/2 hours post op, he came and saw us.

He said that, in the leg that was giving her trouble, the pulse in that foot is just bounding. Great news! He had widened a spot that had narrowed in a previous bypass location and also widened a spot in a previously placed stint that had narrowed. So, she got tune-ups on previous problem spots and the engine is running smoothly again. She will be mostly out of commission for a few days, but will probably be doing cartwheels again next week. That’s almost literally speaking. Almost. Seriously, the woman is 60+ and I bet she’d still try to do a cartwheel if you asked her to. Please don’t.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I really appreciate it.

Today my Mom is having some heart work done. In most cases, these things are usually routine and probably will be in this instance, too. She is having an angioplasty to replace one or maybe 2 stints. She may even be able to go home the same day, depending on if they just do the one. If they have to do both of them, she will be staying over night. I will be at the hospital with her.

I don’t like it when she has heart procedures, or any sort of surgical procedures, really, because she has a bad history with anesthesia. When she had a c-section with me, she hallucinated and it was really ugly. They didn’t give her the same anesthetic when she had my older brother because of her history, but they fucked up with my baby brother and she hallucinated again. She has had other procedures since then where she required anesthesia and, even though they know about her problems and didn’t give her that anesthesia (I don’t even think that they use that particular kind anymore anyway), she still behaves weirdly afterwards. She gets very confrontational. I feel like I have to stay with her to protect the nurses. They give her something to lessen the effects, but I always worry anyway.

I told her that she may not die because I have this trip to Kentucky planned and the guilt from not being there for her funeral would haunt me for the rest of my life. She thought that was really funny, but she promised me she wouldn’t die anyway. I told her that if she died on Tuesday, we could have her visitation on Wednesday and then her funeral on Thursday and I could still catch my flight Friday morning. I think she thinks I’m hysterical. I think. Truly, gallows humor is very common in our family. We had some of our best laughs as a family gathered around my Dad while he was dying of cancer. I know it sounds sick, but sometimes you need that laughter. It’s a release.

I don’t really think she is going to die. You can’t kill her. She’s the energizer bunny. She’s already had 2 heart attacks and so many of these angiograms and angioplasties that I’ve lost track of how many she’s actually had. Besides, I’m too young to be an orphan. I’m not ready for her to leave me yet. I’m not old enough to handle that kind of responsibility. *shudder*

In any case, if you could say a little prayer or keep her in your thoughts anyway, I’d be grateful. I’ll let you know, of course, how it goes.