Ethan’s Journey

 Happy Easter! We kicked off our morning with an Easter egg hunt for the kids. It’s fun to watch, they have fun, and Paul and I giggle about where we hide the eggs. It’s silly and a good tradition. It also adds excitement to the air. It was a beautiful day so after I prepared my breakfast for the family-( it was just bacon, I only cooked bacon. I was feeling lazy.) we spent time out in the yard. All of us! Including the dogs and the rabbit. We all got our exercise. We headed to Mema and Beba’s for dinner. My brother, his wife and her parents and aunt were there. We missed Paul’s sister and parents. Nana and Papa weren’t feeling well. They have been battling Covid. The afternoon was fun and the food was great. We did a lot of laughing. I am so glad I had time this weekend to get away from work. I needed to clear my mind. I had a conversation with a friend recently about Karma. I am a firm believer that what goes around, comes around.  I try to do nice things for people, but sometimes I

 I wish weekends were longer. Today flew by. There simply isn’t enough time to get everything accomplished. I think it is probably because I have been working so many hours lately. It is taking its toll. Damn my work ethic! The weather was nice so I decided to kick everything outside. We were all outside, including the dogs and rabbit. Poor aging Theo. When he hops, sometimes he falls over. He is an aging dude! He is 10. When I brought him in, he promptly fell asleep. I did some weeding, bathed all the dogs and some house work. I also did meal prep.  Ethan had a few friends over. This evening the boys were watching age appropriate TV. It was silly, a little bit risqué and they were all laughing their butts off. I still find these moments precious. Every time I see or hear this type of stuff, i am so thankful I got another chance to hear, see and laugh with Ethan. His friends are nice kids too! Unfair things happen all around us! It is important to go through the grieving process as you

Sarah and I met up this afternoon for her birthday celebration with me. We did a little thrifting, ate dinner at Outback Steakhouse and headed to the hotel. Our plan was super boring.  We put our pajama pants on, watched HGTV, did our scratch off’s with our bellies full and happy. Living it up little a couple of middle aged women. We may have had an alcoholic beverage or three. It’s the little things….that are actually the big things.

 Transferring Ethan’s kidney care to Rochester is one frustrating roadblock after another. It has been a huge game of phone tag. Trying to collect documents. Rochester seems like they don’t have their act together and this is frightening as we place our trust in a team that we already can’t trust. This process has been going on since the fall and I can’t even fathom why it has taken 6 months to coordinate an appointment. Actually we don’t even have an appointment. I am sick of this week. It has been frustrating and I give it two thumbs down. It seems like nothing has been easy this week. It is punishment for going on vacation. I am glad tomorrow is Friday. This evening I announced to Paul that I hated this week and I was going to have a drink. He pointed out a few good things that happened and told me to look at the glass half full.  “Fine. I will! My glass is HALF FULL of tequila!” And it was (mixed with some lime and a few other things). It is Sarah’s birthday today. Tomorrow we are

 Today went much better than yesterday, but it sure was busy. Paul worked on getting the document we needed for our insurance dilemma. He emailed it to me. In the first paragraph I was named “Patricia”…in the second paragraph I was named “Linda”. Hmmmm. Looks like that copy past didn’t go well. I called Paul. When he answered I said “sooooooo….who is Linda?” He was all pissed because he had to reach out and request yet another letter. I also had to call about Ethan’s kidney referral, again. Good thing he isn’t having an urgent matter. No one called me back today. 😩 I am tired due to Paul sawing wood last night. He was brag snoring. “Look at all the good sleep I am getting” he said with each thunderous snore. Tonight Penny felt that she should sleep in the bed with us. She is such a mole in the bed. Twisting and turning all over. She was so excited though. I couldn’t crush her dreams and say “No”. One step closer to the weekend.

 I had a yucky day. I made a dumb mistake at work and it resulted in me looking really stupid. I hate that. I was mad at myself. I made a plan to correct it so that it wouldn’t happen again, however, I stewed about it all day. I don’t like making mistakes and understand we all do, but it was so foolish it just pissed me off. It resulted in me apologizing for being a dumbass to a few different people. I do think it is important to admit your mistakes, address them and then try and learn from them.  I could have tried to defend the mistake or lie about it, but what does that solve? Adds a layer of mistrust…which I also hate and isn’t really my style. I stewed for the rest of the evening and what I could have done differently. I was glad Paul went to bowling. I was a curmudgeon.  Then I got the news that we are having an insurance issue for Paul, myself and Avery. Good news is that it isn’t Ethan for once. Yay! I anticipate a battle to get it solved.  I have noticed that as I age, my anno

 Did you experience anything different with the geomagnetic storm that was happening? I had some technology issues today but it’s hard to say if they were due to a geomagnetic storm OR because technology is a pain in the ass….both scientific terms. Ethan has been home and not working.  He does have some appointments coming up that will be convenient to have him home. He seems more personable than he did while he was working. He has been practicing to take the test for a CDL license. I got home from the night shift around 7 am. I caught a quick nap before my 9:30 meeting. I had meetings until a little after 3. I took another hour long nap and started my two hours of interviews.  These days are tough. I felt a bit tired and cranky. But what I did stop to notice was that Lady and Lord Cardinal like my bird feeder. They are fancy. I noticed that my daffodils are trying to rebound from the crushing snow. I took a moment to smell the outdoors, close my eyes and listen. The peepers were singi

 Today was a lazy day. I slept in, had my coffee, sat on the couch with Paul, which we haven’t done in a while. I sent him funny videos and watched him react to them. He was making me laugh so hard.  I did little piddly things around the house and put in a few hours of work. I do have to work tonight at the ER, so I wanted to get my work done for my meetings tomorrow morning. Plus I will be catching up on sleep off and on throughout the day. I do like to hopefully make a positive difference in their stay. No one likes to be sick, but animals just don’t understand what is going on. If I can offer them an extra walk, pets, blanket, or bring a sense of calmness to their healing process, that makes me feel good. If I can give them a massage or belly rub and tell them how beautiful they are, I am all in. I took a nap today in preparation of my all nighter. It cuts Sundays short, but I thank myself for it later. When I got to the ER, it was evident that there was a full moon. It was crazy. A

I am so glad today was the weekend. We slept in this morning and had our coffee. I feel like there is so much I need to catch up on. I had a moment today where I walked around the corner and saw Ethan and Paul watching some car show that involved racing. This was a pre-transplant activity. I was thrilled. While their relationship has improved over the past 9 months or so, this was a visual win for me. I did some food prep today. The boys cleaned out the freezer while I was gone. I also made a massive amount of Chex Mix for them to eat and snack on. I caught up on my chores today. I did a general cleaning of the house. It was kind of gross. When I climbed into bed, my sheets were clean and fresh and I loved it.  It’s the little things that are the big things.  I only have a week left of Jelly Beans. Man they are so good! 

 Today was full of meetings. I was honored to get recognition for doing a great job by one of my hospitals. Who doesn’t love recognition for the hard work they do? It made me happy to know that I was able to help! My house is a disaster. I tried to pick up and get things in order but didn’t have the drive to do so! I am glad it is the weekend. I need to rest up for my ER shift Sunday night. Avery went back to school today. Boo. I didn’t get to spend much time with her.  That’s ok. I am glad to know she is having some fun! We had to get a rushed fill on Ethan’s rejection medication. This is due to the breach with Medicaid and Medicare processing.   The new doctor’s takes up to 48 hours to respond, so I sent an email to NY doctor’s and they had the script’s we needed in a jiffy. I had to call and speak to a pharmacist a few times at the new pharmacy and I am not impressed so far. I had the pharmacist tell me that the medications would be ready this afternoon. When Paul went to pick them

 Back to the mundane, monotonous days. If my days were a color, they would be “nude” color…just boring. Actually today wasn’t that bad, I am just being dramatic. This evening, Paul, Avery and myself sat on the couch chatting and laughing. I ended up working late to try and cram people in this week. Ethan was on a call with his buddies and I think they were playing Xbox together. I wish the weather came back with me.

 We woke up this morning to a thunder and lightening storm. Rain for our last morning. That was ok. It made it easier to leave. I will not miss driving on the wrong side of the road. Right turns sucked! There were so many roundabouts. It was so hot. So humid. My hair instantly went awry.  Our car rental return, customs, luggage check all went well! Our flight leaving went great. Bye you beautiful island with such nice people! Getting off the international flight, I had downloaded an app that I heard about. It was a customs app. I had things filled out on it, scanned our passports and we got to go into the short line through customs. About an 8 minute wait. It was well worth the free download. We zipped right through. We had a leisurely dinner as our layover was 4 hours. We did some people watching.  We were in the Charlotte airport and it was quite busy. Our gate was changed 3 times. First it was in the B concourse, then the C concourse… then back to the B concourse. We got our exercis

 Today was a lazy day. It was SO HOT! We spent the morning relaxing until our 1:30 buggy ride.  We got to our buggy ride. The hosts were quite entertaining. The rules were straight forward, however, we were not prepared to the degree of which people would not follow the rules. Especially the lady and her son that were in the car ahead of us. DUMBASSES! The lady was on the phone during the instructional portion on SAFETY! It was basically a tutorial of how NOT TO DIE. She was on the phone and missed the tutorial. So we had to follow HER! Ugh! We saw some good sights on the island but it was so hot, that it was a little unenjoyable. We saw the Cheshire plantation. We learned about the slaves and how they grew cotton. The entire time there is was quiet and heavy feeling. We saw the slave living conditions, the plantation ruins and could picture what it was like in the 1800’s there. We then went to lunch. Lunch was actually the highlight for me. I was a bit cranky because I was overheated

 Today we had an early start. We were going on a 6 hour exploration cruise of the different Cays in the area. The water was brilliant, the sun was intense and there was an abundance of spf 70 sunscreen. The group of people we had on our tour was perfect. We all meshed well. There were 11 of us.  We got to meet Jojo. Jojo is a national treasure of Turks and Caicos. He is a 35 year old bottle nose dolphin that freely interacts with humans. He is wild but seems to like people. Jojo likes to follow boats. He seems to enjoy the bubbles from the propellers. We saw Jojo and everyone jumped in the water and swam over to him. He loved the attention and just swam around the group for several minutes. He swam over to Heather and she got to touch him. I did not jump in. I have swam with dolphins before. I was being a chicken. I am very uneasy in deep water. I can swim fine, but we are just so small and the ocean is so vast. As the group swam back, Heather somehow got caught in a current the was im

There was this place I read about called “The Hole” that made me want to visit for a few reasons. First of all…the name. Really? The Hole? I am not mature enough to handle this. Nor is Heather. This is why we are friends. It turns out it is a huge Hole in the earth. In the bottom was a bit of water. There was no fence. If you fell, you fell to your death. We walked around and marveled at the beauty of it. No one else was there. We found a small path off to the side with a smaller hole. It led to the big hole. There was a rope that you could use to scale down to look over the side. If you slip….sure death! So of course I went to check it out. Heather was a bit nervous. I thrive doing stuff like this.  She made me promise not to fall to my death as that would be traumatic for her. I made that promise and kept it. We were also at a high elevation on the island so we could see each coast. It’s not that wide. The color of the water is breathtaking. We had lunch overlooking the ocean. I had

 Vacation is what you make of it. Today the plan was to kind of have, no plan. We slept until we woke up. I had coffee outside while we watched lizards run around. A cat showed up and was super friendly. I made him accept all the love I had by excessively petting him and tellling him how handsome he was.  I knew it was a boy because I checked to see if he was neutered, checked him for fleas and gingivitis. Some habits are hard to break. He was a young and healthy, friendly guy. His little female kitten friend showed up. She was young. Not spayed yet. Paul…can I bring a cat home? We also saw several lizards. Some were big and some are small.  So cute. We loaded up on sun screen and headed to the beach. The sand is so fine. The sun was warm and felt good all the way through to my core. I think I need to live here.  We went in the ocean and cooled off. Heather did some swimming. I stayed where my feet could touch. I did more standing. We then decided to drive down to a different beach tha

When checking the weather last night for our flight, we saw that there was a 50% chance of rain. Heather was trying to plan out about how wet we were going to get. We then thought about how we would both look like drowned rats by the time we got into the airport, with our soaked luggage. After planning our treacherous journey from the parking lot to the airport, it dawned on me….there is a 50% chance it will NOT be raining. Heather and I decided that not rain was more ideal and we would just roll with whatever weather we were given. Our trip to the airport was uneventful. We got on our flight and we were off to conquer the world! The people sitting behind us, Jim and Tracy, had a clear issue with some degree of domestic violence. Between the colorful language and blood shed that occurred (minimal, but still resulted in bleeding) it was clear this was not a healthy relationship.  Heather and I were thriving on the drama of who was still drunk from last night and who was going to go get

 Man! Can this day just speed through a little faster? I have a beach to go to and a margarita to sip. The last day before vacation is soooooooo slow! Heather has arrived and we have our bags packed with a plan to head to the airport at 3:30 am. Yikes! We are ready to go and excited. Bags are packed. Woo hoo!

 My fentanyl/versed nap was delightful. It left me dumb. I had a meeting this evening with our financial advisor. I did pretty well considering. As soon as it was done, I went up to bed.  I spent the evening with my prep and not sleeping. I ended up moving to the couch. I would drift off to sleep only to awaken with urgency. Our couch is so comfortable. I love sleeping on it. Penny begged to lay with me and I, of course snuggled her and made her accept all my love. Paul and I decided we were nerds, showing up with our lap tops as we waited.  I was given my drugs and had a delightful nap about eating snacks. I must have been starving. My dream was about eating the frozen peanut butter and jelly. I don’t remember the doctor talking to me. Oops. Due to the size and severity of my abscess, I developed scar tissue thick enough to prevent them from being able to finish the colonoscopy.  I have earned getting to repeat this whole prep and fasting process and getting a CT scan next month. This

 It’s now dark longer in the morning. We have a small torch light close to the couch. Ethan likes to turn it on in the mornings. We sit together in the glow watching videos or scrolling on our phones, with the dogs snuggled up. This morning, I received the gift of a front row seat to Ethan watching an amusing video. He was outright laughing. Laughing. It was music to my ears. I also began to laugh at him laughing. It was contagious. Never underestimate the power of a smile or laughter. While I was laughing at him laughing, I had a feeling of just being content. This moment was short but powerful. I am glad he feels comfortable laughing now. There were many months where just a half smile was a gift. We are getting Ethan back, slow but sure. Jacob was extubated. Due to his left side paralysis, he is having trouble swallowing. He is on tube feeds currently. I feel so bad for the uncertainty this family has to face.  I started to prep for my procedure tomorrow. Let’s just say I am getting

 My first meeting of the day came.  “Hi, how are you?” I asked She said “fine, how are you?” Hmmm. How am I? I didn’t really know. I answered with “well….I drank my coffee this morning, my dogs are napping and the sun is shining away. I am doing pretty good.” This is really the first thing that came to mind. It seemed to set the tone of the meeting too.  Win! Jacob is slowly making progress. He is still paralyzed on the left side and has been getting off and on fevers. I remember how each moment anything could change. But he is teetering on the side of being extubated. Tomorrow I start to prep for my colonoscopy on Wednesday. It will likely be pretty shitty. (See what I did there?) Ethan is done working at his job on Friday. He is going to explore other career options.  As I get ready to go to bed, I asked myself what I am thankful for. Beyond the normal things like family, friends and health. I decided that I  am thankful for it being light out a little later. I am thankful for my bed

 Today was the first Sunday in several Sundays that I didn’t have to work overnight. It just changed the way my day went.  Ethan and Paul have been chatting about how to go about how to approach doing things with Ethan’s car. I like that they are bonding over this.  We went to dinner to celebrate birthdays with the in-laws. We picked Avery up on the way. The weather outside was nasty while we stuffed our faces with food from The Cheesecake Factory. Everyone ordered cheesecake for dessert. Ethan and Avery sat next to each other. Ethan was showing Avery some videos on his phone and the two of them were giggling. I liked that. On the way home, my sugar high, turned into a sugar low and I couldn’t stay awake. Thank god Paul was driving. Then end. I came home and went right to bed. I am glad I didn’t have to work tonight.

 I felt tired today. I had a long week. I gave myself a break and just piddled around. I did online grocery shopping to pick up tomorrow. I took a nap. It was needed. Paul and I grabbed pizza and took it over to my cousin, Andy’s house. Andy and Diane are going with Paul and I to Aruba in late spring.  We planned a little bit of our time there. We booked an island tour. We were trying to decide where we wanted to visit and plan the historical sights to see.  We plan to rent a vehicle to drive all over the island. If you have ever been, share what you enjoyed doing there. We are excited. We have never been to Aruba.  I do consider the planning portion of trips part of the fun of the trip. 

 Today is International woman’s day. Do you know how I found that out? Ethan sent me this cute little text! But what does that really mean? Celebrate women? It is to shine some light on issues affecting women across the world. Things like gender equality, reduce poverty -we need to take action to prevent poverty from striking over 342 million women and girls by 2030. A change in Green economy and care society to amplify women’s voices. Basically do better as a society to support women.  As a woman, we also need to support one another. Do our part where we can to positively contribute to society while we are able to. This will unite us and make us stronger in the long run. After all, one of our many superpowers is to create humans.  Today I woke up early again, mind racing and I just got up. I did some light cleaning, got myself ready for the day. By 11:00 am I was exhausted. I listened to my body and took a bit of a nap. I woke up kind of dumb. But eventually felt better.  This weekend

 I woke up at 2:30 am….for the day. For the first hour, I laid in bed watching reels hoping to fall back asleep. Then it got tedious. My mind just went amok. Racing thoughts of “what if’s”. Not good.  The mom I connected with shared that her son now has the same stroke boots and air bed that Ethan had. He sounds like he is in pretty rough shape. Removing the piece of skull was successful in removing some cranial swelling. This poor kid has no use of his left side. He has a long road ahead of him. I don’t want to bother the mom too much, but I send her small notes every little bit to let her know she is not alone. His transplant has just mimicked Ethan’s but is worse! Ugh!  I have been watching their story and am hoping this kid makes it out ok.  This evening I volunteered to moderate a Vet Tech trivia. It was a lively group of over 100 students. It was actually fun. The hosts were my co-workers and we were harassing these kids. Not a bad night.

A mom reached out to me that her son had a transplant around when Ethan did. Her son was around the same age as Ethan and had some rejection complications. Her son got his second transplant a week ago. Things are going horribly wrong. He had a stroke that left his left side completely paralyzed. They had to remove a portion of his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. She said she is hoping she will be able to hear his voice again. Like ever. This immediately sent me into tears remembering that feeling of helplessness. Ugh! I am worried for her kid. Right before I saw her message come through, I was annoyed by some work things going on. Suddenly, I was reset to being thankful that I was only annoyed by work things. Funny how that works.  It then took up real estate in my mind for the rest of the day. Constantly worrying about this kid I never met. Avery had a meeting/interview with the Summer Undergrad Research Program. She was a little nervous but felt that overall, she did well