Ethan’s Journey

 I started my morning off with a walk up the road with the dogs. My hair was  bed head styled, my breath was bad enough to make the devil stagger back. Why would I take care of my needs if the dogs might need to go potty?  I was groggy, had no bra on and I walked up the road with my raw beautiful self. I had all four dogs at my side. We met a lady coming our way, which is unusual because there’s not much traffic in this area.  She was walking alone and I had four rowdy dogs as she approached. She was friendly, and Penny started barking. I told the lady that Penny would stop barking if she could sniff her and that Penny was friendly.  Penny went to sniff her and so did Ferguson Moe came over stepped on Ferguson. Ferguson bit Moe by, Penny bit Ferguson because they were all upset at one another. It was a real shit show at this woman’s feet. Jim was minding his own business.  We just pulled back and I apologized for their drama. We walked enough so everyone co...

Paul woke up early to start a project. It involved digging, sand, dirt, big machines and many helping hands.  Paul sent me to the gas station to grab fuel for the project. While at the gas station, there were chickens walking around the parking lot. Best.Day.Ever. We got back (with zero chickens). Avery commented on how one man did all the work and the others watched….with their hands on their hips. Avery said it reminded her of King of the Hill. I told her that King of the Hill had to base their cartoon on Satire and basic human nature offered plenty of material. At one point we all pitched in and had to shovel sand. I assume that tomorrow I will feel that. I used my legs a lot. We worked together and finished what we needed to by the end of the day. It was nice to have that sense of community on the shore. Today, you help us. Tomorrow we will help you.   I took the dogs on three lengthy walks. They LOVED it. Penny and Moe bounce around together off leash at top speed. J...

 Paul has poison ivy. He gets it every year. It is usually bad and carries on for weeks. He tries so hard to avoid it. He showers after working outside. He wears long sleeves. He avoids touching it.  His eye is swollen and he is pissed about starting vacation with it. I can’t blame him. Avery did part of the driving so I could finish some things for work on my computer. We had Myself, Avery, Kendall, and 4 excited dogs who love riding in the car to “go camping”. At the half way point, we switched and I took over. We may have picked up some food too. Yum. I started driving and about 2 minutes in we hit a spot where I had to merge with other traffic. I put my blinker on, saw a gap in the traffic so I couldn’t scoot over and the truck I was merging in front of, sped up immediately so I couldn’t get over. It was a couple in their 60’s. I remained in my lane and had to break as the road was coming to an end and scoot over quickly as they passed. I said out loud “I hope the 0.7 seco...

 My heart broke just a little bit today as I learned of more amazing people that I had the pleasure to work with, were terminated as our company moves forward. One of the ladies was someone I met when she managed a practice. The first time I met her she was so friendly, warm and I had a great conversation with her.  I thought about how cool she was and it wasn’t until our next meeting I learned that she had lost her husband  two months earlier to suicide. She shared how in hind sight, she should have recognized the signs, but she didn’t. She was blind sided. It was around the time Ethan was struggling pretty hard and I had taken the QPR suicide prevention training. I worked with her a few months and then things got switched around and she was assigned to my coworker. I thought about her often and celebrated when I had heard she was promoted. I reached out to congratulate her. It wasn’t until months later, things switched around again. I was working with her in her new rol...

 Paul woke up mostly on the right side of the bed. Phew! We all have bad days. He had a relatively good day at work. Yay! He started working in the yard and heard a funny noise from our air conditioner. He pulled it apart and found that it was almost all the way clogged with debris. Out came the shop vac and he worked at cleaning it up. Maybe it will work a little better for us now.  My company is experiencing a merger. Today was a hard day as our leadership had to make the decisions to cut people across the board. It’s a merger and with those there is always change. As a great fraternity I know says “To change is to survive.”  One person on my team was eliminated. I feel sad about it but understand how all this works. Due to the nature of the corporate beast, casualties happen. My goal is to survive them.The corporation was kind with their severance packages. I genuinely like what I do and feel like I am helping people. I like the flexibility of my position and it allows...

I got a text message today from a guy in the Army asking if Ethan had interest in the Army Reserve or the Army. I laughed out loud. Even if Ethan had a strong passion to go this route, he would be turned away in a jiffy.  I let the man know that Ethan is a dual organ recipient on several medications with a history of epilepsy and stroke. I let them know he has multiple specialists, doesn’t have great stamina and wondered if he would still have interested in someone like that. He told me he would “remove Ethan’s name from the list”…yes sir…I think that would be best for all involved. Paul came home as a grumpy bear. I know he is feeling stressed with what is on his plate. I did not poke the bear. I played dead to avoid conflict. It worked. I had to start cutting back my mums. 4 inches by the 4 th. I was sweating my ass off and trying to keep the flower bed neat because Paul mulched and it looks so nice. The heat was humid and everything was sticky. There was no way to avoid a shower...

 Thanks Jenny, luckily for us, Avery is not hard to love. She appreciates small things. She is witty. She is kind. She makes me want to be a better person. With this heat going on today, I am certain I am not going to like Hell very much. Ha! My day started at 7:00 with interview after interview. Don’t feel too sorry for me, I make my own schedule and chose to start this early. I am taking a few days off next week and want to make sure I have people moving through my practices.  I started my marathon of meetings. In the middle, I had to hop on a call with Ethan and the cardiologists office. We were presented some options with adjusting medications to help alleviate the toll his one rejection medication is causing. There are basically five medication types that work well to suppress the immune system. One of those is pretty harsh on the kidneys as well as lowers the seizure threshold. People that have epilepsy should not use it. Ethan has what is considered post traumatic epile...