Welcome to my week or does a year make a difference?!

Was going to write on Monday, but had some computer problems...Why Monday? It was October 27 that started the week from hell last year. I just went back and read the posts from that day and my friend Brian made the posts for me and I never posted the story of that day.

Here's what happened that day..... We had a great day the Friday before. But at about 5am on Saturday, Trish felt she needed to get up and use the restroom, she couldn't get up and she called to me to help her. I tried to help her standup and she passed out each time. After three tries, I had to call an ambulance to take us across the street to the Hopkins ER.

After an intense hour or two in the ER, they did a CATSCAN and found that she was bleeding in her stomach, specifically a branch of her hepatic artery. Her liver got beat up pretty badly, but it looked like it would recover. They rushed Trish upstairs to surgery and I walked around the hospital and finally went to relax in the room they were holding for Trish in Weinberg (the cancer building we spent so much time in during 2007). I remember paying to turn the TV on, my team - the Florida Gators were to play the Georgia Bulldogs that day. We were favored to win and Tim Tebow was the shoe-in to win the Heisman Trophy. I needed something good to happen that day. I was sure the Gators would provide something for me to be happy about on that day. They started out well, but the tide turned (not an Alabama reference Barry) and Georgia smacked the Gators hard. Was this an omen on how my week would end or just an unprepared football team? It doesn't matter. It was, what it was and summed up the worst day of my life better than I could at the time. My best memory of that day was a backrub one of the new nurses gave me while I was waiting for the doctors call.

The doctor who worked on Trish called me about 3pm and explained that he had stopped the bleeding (he thought), but that it appeared that she had "lots" of aneurysms in the area of her hepatic artery and its branches. She finally made it to the room by about 6pm and it was the first ever time she was being wheeled not by orderlies, but by the purple people. The purple people are the crash cart transporters. They roll patients through the hospital while connected to monitors and have emergency gear in back packs they wear so that if something happens along the way they can work on the patient in the halls.

The roller coaster of prays, hopes and possible positive/negative outcomes lasted till about Wednesday that week - which was Halloween. Luckily everyone made it up either late Saturday or Sunday. The boys had a great visit with Trish on Sunday.

You all know the rest of the story or can go back and read it using the archive tool in the left column.

So, where are we a year later? I lost about 50 pounds during this week last year, not eating for obvious reasons. I am now about 70 pounds heavier than I was than. Andy is in his freshman year of college at UF - he's scared me a couple of times. I always promised Trish that he could handle the complex large school environment and stay focused. He's "worked" hard at proving me wrong since arriving there. Matt is doing well in his junior year of high school, just got his ring today. I am the Lacrosse team Dad and have automated everything for the team (http://www.novalax.org) . I cook dinner the way I did in college, which isn't a good thing. It was cold last night and I bought hot chocolate for Matt and remembered he and Andy liked lots of marshmallows in their chocolate. As Matt sat sipping his swiss miss, he remembered how Mom would make home made marshmallows to put in homemade hot chocolate. How can you ever get over that?

Some things have moved forward well, others not so much. I'd like to blame it all on the bad cold I had in January which seemed to knock the wind out of my sails. I decided to offer u our house to host Thanksgiving dinner this year in hopes that the deadline would help me get organized, cleaned up and unpacked by than. We'll see.

All my bricks about to be laid.....

I went on a memorial brick buying binge at the beginning of the year (see list of memorials on left), but now by the end of this month they should all be laid. UCF where Trish finished her college degree is expected to lay the brick there in the next week, St. Max, our church, just laid the brick there last week (I still need to go take a picture), and on October 25th the bricks I bought in Canton, MD -- just a stone's throw away from Hopkins will be laid. I got worried because this project had been delayed several times and when I recently emailed to check on it, my email came back as undeliverable. But, thanks to our good friend and one of Trish's nurses, Katie we know what is going on. One day after work, Katie stopped by the square for me, snapped the picture below and sent it to me. She made my day.

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