Before I begin, let me include a disclaimer. For those who know nothing about my life, I assure you that this is all true if maybe somewhat out of order in a few places and you have no idea how much I have left out. For those who "rode this horse with me" You may want to choose to skip this part of my blog, Ive been told its a bit much to relive in a short amount of time. You decide. But don't say I didn't warn you. Also, if there are things that you think I have forgotten and need included, message me and let me know and I will include them.
Continuing we go.............
2005 Must have been a quiet year or I have just not remembered.
November 9, 2005 Ethan is born. I was invited to be there. Spent the night watching the same movie over and over. I got to hold him, he and I are friends for ever. Went to work and left Daddy with his new family.
2006 I honestly cant remember the year but I THINK it was either 2005 or 2006. It was January, I know that. My parents wake up and start breakfast. My youngest brother, does not. The last 2 and a half years were great with him. Best time since he was younger than 10 years old. He and my parents traveled, did things together, my kids and I spent time with him. He is missed.
Liz goes back to college. Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas are pretty weird.
May,
Sam gets burned, he and I take an air ambulance to Lubbock, They want him out of the hospital here and to a burn unit as fast as possible because this involves his face so if his nasal passages or throat start swelling he could die quickly. Thunder and lightening all around and 5 loops over town to get over the mountain in the storm. Each leg of our trip, Ambulance from hospital to the airport, Air Ambulance, Ambulance to the medical center, the EMT's all apologize to me at the end of their run or al the stories they told Sam of the ways THEY did things that could have injured them at the least or killed them at best. I learned that I am really not sure how our species has survived. Spraying your hand with hairspray and then lightening it on fire? And THAT was from a FEMALE EMT. Diagnosis 2nd and 3rd degree burns up one arm, all across his chest, and over most of his face. The question we have is, are freckles on the surface of your skin or do they go all the way to the bone? We spend the next few weeks debriding his burns twice a day. Standing in the shower in warm water and I have a washcloth to scrub the area as hard as I can then rebandage.
Abby graduates from high school. Cheer captain, band, honor society among other things. I am so very proud. We go on her graduation cruise. What a blast we have!!!!! The sunburn I get on the beach that lasts 3 weeks is TOTALLY WORTH IT !!! The food!!! Oh my gosh the food... Do you want a horse that goes slow or fast? I want a SHORT HORSE!!! Many memories there, check out my scrapbook. She starts college.
Fall,
Jonathan goes to the doctor to see what's wrong with his thumb, comes out with a stint in his heart. 95% blockage. Well, not really in and out, it involves a 2 night stay in the hospital here taking tests that he is passing with flying colors. 94th percentile for someone of his age, Doc says he is just fine to go home after they get the results of one more test. Ummm guess what, you are going to Las Cruces to a specialist, by ambulance. Long story short, the doctor decides to go look and see what we can see since there is nothing conclusive. My Aunt and Uncle come to sit with me. Doctor tells me he needs to change some things cause his arteries look like hamburger but if he gets some good exercise, eats better and gives up the tobacco things should go well for him with the aid of a little medication to assist. I learn things about the heart that I never knew I wanted to know. I also found out that Jonathan does not need to take Ativan ever again. He does not react well to it at all. We wont go into any more detail. Funny to figure out the things I can talk about and the things I don't seem to be able to yet. There are pictures in my head but I really cant form words in any way that makes sense.
2007 Must have been pretty ordinary as I cant tell you much about it right now
2008 June, Jace is born, There is something wrong but we don't know just what. A few days later he is diagnosed with Tricuspid Atresia. Tricuspid atresia is a type of heart disease that is present at birth (congenital heart disease), in which the tricuspid heart valve is missing or abnormally developed. The defect blocks blood flow from the right atrium to the right ventricle. In his case, the tricuspid heart valve is not there at all, but his body formed a hole between the right atrium and the right ventricle in a different place, just no valve there. We learn a great deal about the workings of the heart that we never knew we wanted to know.
Two weeks after he is born, Liz and Dusty get married. We still have no idea really of prognosis for Jace. We had a great time, summer wedding ice cream sundae bar at the reception!!! Yum Yum. They wait a week to leave on their honeymoon so that Dusty can officiate for the wedding of a friend of ours. Can you imagine them being that thoughtful? Then they kind of all ride off to honeymoon land together. Liz and Dusty are going to Branson, My mom and dad head that way as well. Oh and the month before that they Graduate from college They literally live IN the church Dusty preaches in for more than a year.
November, Abby and Aaron meet. They each just need a friend at the moment. We know that Aaron is deploying to Afghanistan in April. They spend a lot of time talking.
2009
Aaron leaves for predeployment training in March.
, Being completely non military, this was a world we had really never touched before. Aaron was in EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) He would be gone for 6 months. We learn about Skype, we learn about the delays in over seas calls. They email a lot as of course they are on 2 separate schedules. He and I talk a lot. Abby and I don't watch the news anymore. We also are very selective about songs that come on the radio. Aaron and I look at engagement rings on line. I keep a LOT of secrets during this time. We don't tell him anything about what is going on with my dad. They like each other and we don't want to worry him in his situation. He is gone until October.
August
My dad is diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. He and my mom and his brothers and sisters in law go on vacation. Sept. he starts treatment in Albuquerque. With the help of friends they go to Albuquerque to live for 2.5 months. We learn a lot of things I never knew I wanted to know.
Oct 6, max bends over and realizes his back hurts. He presses on. Oct 10 my phone rings asking me to come take care of the kids so that an ambulance can take max to the hospital as he cant get up off the bathroom floor because of his back. Diagnosis, millimeters away from a fully ruptured disk in his back and he is unable to work. I go on working. Max is out for 6 months unable to work. I find a couple of brothers who can fill in for him at least part time.
November, my mom and dad come back from treatment, and 2 days later Jonathan leaves for a detail in Arizona. Things look very good after treatment but we know how things can change so Thanksgiving and Christmas are holidays to be cherished this year even though Jonathan is in Arizona. The day after Christmas the boys and I drive out to Nogales to see Jonathan. We spend the weekend and come back on Monday for me to go back to work and be able to keep the store open.
2009/2010
Thursday is New Years Eve. Im at work. Phone rings, Jonathan tells me he doesn't feel well and his chest feels "wrong" so he is driving himself to the medical center in Tucson to be checked out. I start scrambling to get the store closed, find a place for the boys to stay, get them packed, get me packed, get out of town. As I am leaving, the phone rings again and he tells me that they aren't sure what is going on so they are going to go in and do another angiogram as soon as they can work him in (ON NEW YEARS EVE REMEMBER) but don't worry he will probably be the last one in late in the evening. I start driving. I pull in to Las Cruces, the phone rings again, they are going to start prepping him NOW... Im still in New Mexico YOU CANT YET. The doctors want to go home. I drive, boy do I drive. Did you know that a 2004 Dodge 3500's cruise control doesn't work above 90 mph? I do. The sun starts going down and it becomes very apparent that most of the rest areas are already filling up even if I felt like I had time to stop and go to the bathroom. The traffic that is still out on the road is me and semi trucks. 5 miles before the Arizona state line they call me and tell me he is out of surgery and I can slow down. Yeah right. I get there, spend the night in a chair. They did bring me a blanket though. I could stay there since I had no other place to go unless they had to bring another patient in, then I would have to go sleep in the waiting room. But at least this time he is resting peacefully. We know not to give him the same meds and he has his restless leg meds WITH him so we don't have to worry about him bleeding out because we cant get the bleeding to stop like the last time. The next day we meet with the team of doctors and residents and learn more about hearts than I knew I wanted to know. Things are clogging back up again. Meds need to be changed, life style items need to be changed. But things will be ok. Happy New Year..Its 2010
The end of January the phone rings at work, I am waiting on a customer, my mom answers the phone. She says it is Ashley for me. I answer the phone, The voice on the other end of the phone says, Sherry, I'm at the hospital, I'm in Labor and I cant find my mom. I need you, Please? I tell the 2 salesmen that are waiting for me that they have to catch me next time as I really have to leave. In the next 12 hours, I learn about letting my niece wrap her arms around me to hold her steady while she gets an epidural. I learned that epidurals sometimes don't work, or work incorrectly, like they only numb the left side of a woman's body, and not all of it so you don't feel on one side and you feel it ALL on the other. I learned that there was a really great doctor on call who went home at 10 pm to get some sleep because while things were progressing we weren't there yet. Then she came back at 11 because when she got home to get in the shower before going to sleep, she just couldn't help feeling that even though she was "only" the doctor on call and had actually never seen my niece before, she just couldn't shake the nagging feeling that there was something she wasn't seeing and wanted to ask us if we thought it was time to consider a C-section or did we want to wait a while longer. Her hair was still wet. I asked her the question I have learned to ask doctors who give us those kind of choices.. "if this was YOUR daughter, what would you do?" She said Section her now. I was sent to change into scrubs as quickly as I could while they wheeled her into OR... I got in there just in time to see the doctor somersault a baby twice to unwrap the cord from around his neck...Twice. They cleaned him off, wrapped him in a blanket and handed him to me, to show to his mommy and then take to the Nursery in my arms while they finished looking at all of her internal organs to make sure everything was ok before they put them back where they belonged and sewed her up. He was perfect and I stayed with him till they brought his mommy back to her room.
June, 3:00 am, Phone rings, Daddy, Im in labor. In the truck, I mention again that the curise control does not work above 90 MPH which is fine because we cant drive that fast going through the mountains anyway. It does NOT however take us 3 hours to drive to Hobbs, America. Things go along as labor does. This anestiseologist however doesn't ALLOW anyone in the room for an epidural so as uncomfortable as I was before, it made me really angry that NO one was allowed to stay in the room while this procedure was done. Things go along more hours. WE are finally at a point to push and the doctor is not there, they call him and reassure us that he is only 10 minutes away. An Hour and a Half later when she is still "NOT PUSHING" and the doctor is not there, I mentally give myself an ultimatum of 2 more minutes, If he is not there in 2 more minutes I am throwing everyone out of this room and her dad (who was an EMT and has done a lot of this) is going to deliver this baby. The doctor got in with 30 seconds to spare. ( This last year there was an article on the news about this doctor being indited for things that we were probably dealing with in this case) The good news was this sweet little boy was fine inspite. We were just going to be there till she delivered then go back home to work.. But Grandpa decided that Grandma needed time to spend with Dart before we went home so 2 more days were spent there Yeah it was Grandma who needed this.
Interspersed in this year and the next couple Jace has angioplasty done a couple of times, open heart surgery 2 times. We learn things about hearts we never knew we wanted to know. I go with Leah to several appointments and take care of Ethan during times they are away for surgeries and recovery.
Life goes on, work goes on, growing up goes on. Have I mentioned that Malachi is not fond of school. Have I mentioned that Malachi stays very busy? Have I mentioned that at 14 he completely runs the Vacation Bible School program at our church pretty much single handedly.
Abby and Aaron are getting married. We have been having such a great time, planning, making, designing deciding on wedding things. Just before the wedding we find out that the cancer is back and my dad is now considered terminal with 6 months give or take to live. My uncles come for the wedding. We have a blast. Abby and Aaron head off for their honeymoon.
September, its time to go. He falls and breaks his femur. The dizziness that causes the fall is probably a result of an arrhythmia cause by the cancer getting to his heart or the radiation damage that they caused. or it was just time. I wont forget the night I spent at the hospital before they could do the surgery on his bone sitting at the foot of the bed holding traction on his leg when the muscles started spasms very few minutes. Pulling on a broken bone somehow seemed counter intuitive but on the other hand, it stopped the pain for a few minutes. Standing over his bed and watching the man who was sedated take the intubation tube out of his own throat with his teeth and tongue was pretty amazing if not frightening. Then there was the move home after he decided he had been poked and prodded enough and was done. Then there was his final breath. My parents were married for 57 years. During that week in the hospital (wow was it only a week?) I learned a lot of things I never knew I wanted to know.
Its a really rough time for Jonathan, Max, Sam, in particular. I just have to keep things going till they are ready.
2011 I'm drowning trying to figure out all of the things I should have known how to do and I didn't. 2 businesses to run. Too many things to say here too that really aren't that important, but wow, its a really fast time of trying to get my feet under me and to keep things together for everyone else around me. There are bills to be paid. Choices are very limited. Have to keep Malachi and Sam's education going in some way as well. One foot in front of the other, I can do this. Fire season this year is the busiest we have had in years. One weekend Jonathan replaces water pumps on all 3 pieces of our equipment, one here in the yard, then one in Arizona and the third in Northern New Mexico and is back in time for his regular shift at work.
July We get another phone call. The very short version of this story is we make a racing trip to Albuquerque to be there with my last remaining sibling when he passes away from kidney failure.
He and I had talked pretty much every day. I ran ideas by him, he gave me his opinion, he was just the one who was there to listen to me any time I just needed to talk, he kept me straight as well. Every day is a little weird now. Some times I still wait for the phone to ring.
2012 April 11, Jonathan has a heart attack. I think this is where I will stop. I'm pretty sure that not only am I not ready to really talk about this event and things that have happened after, but I don't think everyone is ready to hear my thoughts on it either. Just know that I learned a lot of things I never knew I wanted to know. A lot of second guessing and people deciding what caused the event. The good news is that with the exception of some questionable feelings and several trips to the doctor and the ER there have been no more episodes to date and we are almost at our 3 year anniversary.
Life went on and that brings us to July of 2013 and the decision that has brought us to where we are now. That is another story even though I have shared parts of it in other blogs. New business ventures, new learning, new challenges. They continue every day but that choice to change directions has made today possible. It has granted Jonathan freedom to do some things right now that there is no way he could have done in his previous life. I am very thankful for the opportunities he currently has. Enough for now.
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