EvErYdAy LoVe...

Saturday, June 16, 2012

dAnCiNg In ThE rAiN...fOuR yEaRs LaTeR (6/16/12)

A friend shared this quote with me..."Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it's learning about how to dance in the rain." I am thankful for His many blessings (big and small) that have gotten us through the past four years and that He has allowed us to dance...even if it's in the rain!

Today, we are celebrating by having a date night and going to Aaron's first Rays game since before his accident! Just weeks before the accident, we had started our annual tradition of going over to Tampa to Tropicana Field. This was one of our favorite things to do with friends. Here are some pictures of us from that game in 2008.

Silly Aaron before the accident!

Aaron and Coach before the accident, the shirts were not planned...in fact we did
not even know he would be at the game!

Ready for this years pictures?! We even made a pit stop at Hooter's before the game for some wings! Thank goodness for OnStar, handicapped parking, and the vendors who bring your beverages right to your seats at the game!

As you can probably tell, we had a great time! I forgot to mention that we couldn't find the car when we got back to the parking lot, we sang to 90's music (including Tag Team's "Whoomp There It Is"...Aaron knows ALL the words!!!) all the way home, and Aaron remembered a lot about the games we had gone to before his accident!

I love the days like today that make this journey so easy...

Thursday, June 14, 2012

aLmOsT fOuR yEaRs!

For the record, I think I have decided to write the most current events from here on out and go back to catch up on the last four years in between. You follow?!?

I can not believe that we are about to hit the four year mark! This has been the year I have been dreading for some time because this year is my eighth year in Florida (which is also my eighth year with Aaron). I am struggling with knowing that from here on out, the years after the accident will out number those that came before where things were much less complicated.

Each year I have tried to do something special with Aaron to celebrate another year gone by, another year of getting better. It was harder at first because we were limited with the things we could do but here is how the first three years went!

Year ONE (2009)...

We were not able to leave Aaron's rehab at this point. He was mostly in his wheelchair, except for at therapy where he had started using a rolling walker. The day of his accident, he was wearing a USF shirt that I had bought him. It was cut off at the scene of the accident and thrown away afterwards so I surprised him with a new one! (Which doesn't fit at this point and and had to be donated a long time ago!)

Year TWO (2010)...

By now Aaron was using his rolling walker most of the time in therapy and out. I was working on my counseling internship and my schedule was pretty full so I splurged on a new cell phone for him since I didn't have time to take him out. He was also doing trials in therapy with soft foods and honey thick liquids. It wasn't going well but I brought key lime pie anyhow, knowing he could at least have a few tastes of the filling.

Year THREE (2011)...

This time we decided to celebrate by going to the happiest place on earth and it wasn't rehab which Aaron now referred to as "Alcatraz". Aaron's parents and the kids were in Florida for vacation so they got to celebrate with us. Prior to going I had asked Aaron's neurologist about riding rides and his response was to let Aaron have some fun so Tea Cups (which Aaron spun) it was! We also went on a few other rides and Aaron even "drove" for the first time since his accident! Disney was very accommodating and we had a great time!

Year FOUR (2012)...that will be the Ray's game Saturday!

jUnE 16th 2008

Here begins the tough stuff...

As I drove away from the lake (a friend and I had gone to walk after we finished teaching summer school) I dialed voicemail for a second time. I had just hung up from listening to a message I hadn't listened to from the night before. I thought it was strange that I didn't even have a missed call, on the other end I heard an unfamiliar voice tell me "Hi Renee, my name is Kathy. I am calling from Lakeland Regional, we have Aaron in our emergency department. When you get this message please call me."

Just then my call waiting interrupted my message and it was a number I did not recognize. The same woman was calling me back to tell me Aaron had been in an motorcycle accident. She told me that Aaron had been taken by helicopter and she needed me to come to Lakeland Regional Medical Center right away.

I hung up and spent the next few seconds trying to make sense of the message and phone call. I realized that I didn't even know where Lakeland Regional was. I had been following my friend home from the lake up until this point. I tried to call her but there was no answer. I kept trying, shortly before I was about to pass my subdivision I was able to reach her and told her what I knew.

We decided that we would drop off my car at my house. As I pulled in the driveway, I got another call from the hospital asking if I was on my way. This was the third call, I knew then that this couldn't be good. I grabbed my purse and car charger for my cell phone and we left immediately.

It takes about 40 minutes to get to Lakeland and from what I remember, we rode most of the ride in silence. Neither of us knew what to say, especially since my my friend know how my dad had been killed in a motorcycle accident when I was a newborn.

Somewhere during the ride I tried to call my aunt in Michigan but wasn't able to get in touch with her. I also called Aaron's brother in Ohio. (These would become my two major points of contact later on as it was impossible to talk with everyone.) I also called our pastor, who was in Lakeland. He was in a meeting but he said that he would meet us at the hospital as soon as he could.

When we pulled up, we realized my pastor had been able to beat us there. He had told security we were coming so we drove straight throughout the gate. Hospital staff took us back to an office, we sat there for what seemed like an hour. Again, no one was saying much. We still did not have any information and in the mean time someone brought me a bag of Aaron's clothes. A smaller bag had his wallet, wedding ring, and cell phone. Everything in the small bag looked like it was in one piece, nothing was broken or even scratched. I remember feeling relieved, thinking to myself that it couldn't be that bad if his belongings weren't harmed.

Finally, they took two of us back to see Aaron. My friend who had driven me to the hospital came back with me and our pastor waited. We were in the room for seconds before the asked me to come out and consult with the doctor. The only thing I really remember noticing was that Aaron's feet were sticking out of the sheet and he had one sock on. Outside the room they asked for permission to put in an external shunt and went over scans of Aaron's brain with me. I couldn't understand what the doctor was saying, I was hearing his words but at this point my brain just wouldn't comprehend. The only thing I saw in the pictures that I recognized was his neck and it looked fine to me.

Somewhere in there, I was told that he would be transferred to the intensive care unit. I stayed behind in emergency area to fill out paperwork while my friend and our pastor were taken upstairs to the ICU waiting room. This was the first time I felt totally helpless, as close as Aaron and I were I couldn't even tell the hospital if Aaron has any allergies.

By the time I actually got upstairs to meet them, a member of the trauma team was coming out to see me before they left. They actually asked if I were his daughter at first (I had one of my elementary school t-shirts on, short gray shorts, and my short hair had become curly after we got rained on walking around the lake just a few hours earlier). One of the girls hugged me tight and told me she was so sorry. Again, we had little information on Aaron's condition and if we did I was still in total disbelief that I hadn't comprehended it.

We they took all three of us back to go see Aaron, it was not what I had expected. I got a much better look at him this time. He had been put on a ventilator. There were tape, tubes, and machines everywhere. He also had a neck brace on. Funny enough, other than that he actually looked pretty good.

The nurse came in the room to explain the ICU procedures. I had to have most of it reexplained to me after we left the ICU because I couldn't understand what they had said. I had trouble coming up with a password for them so that we could call in and get information if we left the hospital. (I picked "Ohio State" by the way!)

Some other friends heard the news in the meantime and rushed to the hospital. One friend and his wife even came all the way over from Tampa. We sat around, waiting. At one point we went to the cafeteria, I remember not being hungry but everyone was trying to feed me. I think at this point we knew it was serious and Aaron had hit his head pretty badly (even though he was wearing a helmet). Yet, it was so surreal as we all sat together.

At 7pm each night the ICU closed to visitors during the shift changes and did not reopen until 9pm so we decided to go back home. My friend and I still had wet shoes and we needed a shower and a change of clothes. She reluctantly let me stay at my house alone, while she went back to her house to get ready. This friend was just the first of our many blessings. (She stayed by my side for the weeks to come and went out of her way to help, talk about a true friend!)

In less than an hour, we were on our way back to LRMC. We stopped to get McDonald's on the way, neither of us really liked it and I laughed to myself writing this because we could have gone a dozen different places that were on the way. We shared a chicken nugget value meal in the waiting room, it had gotten cold by the time we got a chance to sit and eat. I also searched for a outlet to plug in my phone, the only one I could find was behind a Coke machine. A few more friends came up to see us, there was not much to say. We were just waiting.

We went in and out of Aaron's room for a few hours before deciding to lay across some couches in the main entrance, I was going up to Aaron's room from time to time since you couldn't sleep in rooms. I don't know that we actually slept that night but I do remember how cold we were! At one point during the night I found a staff member who was able to find us some already warmed blankets (another little blessing).

Still uncertain about a lot of things, this day finally ended and a new one was beginning. The next few days kind of blurred together.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

sEeMs PiCtUrE pErFeCt...right???

I am still working on catching up as well as deciding what direction to take this since I am playing catch up from the past and have a ton to write about the present....I already wrote as short of a trip as I could down memory lane and it's a good story so far if I say so myself!

If you have been reading the first few entries, by now you know us well enough to know what comes next and like me are enjoying looking back at all of these sweet memories. Maybe you are an acquaintance or a just a stranger that just enjoys reading other people's blogs and you are just learning a lot about our life together but you probably won't be able to guess what happens next...

Please keep in mind that as I continue to write our story and share our experiences that are loaded down with my feelings, thoughts, and frustrations (especially since it's out here for anyone to view) that this is not meant to hurt anyone, especially our families and friends who have stuck by us through trying times. I will probably remind you of this a million times as I write about the tough stuff and I also put this in my "all about me"!!!!!

My hope is that by doing this blog...something I write can inspire, help, or give someone else hope in a difficult situation when the easiest thing to do would be to give up and walk away.

Who knows, it might even be something good for Aaron to look back on and a little therapy for me in the end. And I can't forget my mom, she would just like to use it to get me on the Ellen Degeneres show lol :)

tHe FiRsT yEaR...and a HaLF!!!

As we rang in the new year and put one year or marriage behind us we celebrated a lot of birthdays and weddings. We even had our first family members come all the way to Florida to visit and stay at our new house!
We had just visited Michigan over Memorial Day for my cousins wedding and bought tickets to go to Ohio soon after school was out. We were getting ready for summer by going to a few Ray's games, karaoke, and to the Blue Man Group with friends.
In the meantime Aaron decided to buy a motorcycle since his car was no longer drivable (by my standards). I reluctantly agreed but not before we made some rules and stipulations so that each of us would remain happy! It had been something he had always wanted to do and he had thought long and hard, he even signed up for the class and took me along to pick out a good helmet.
Our next major thing to check off our "plan" was my masters but that would take about another year. We had also decided that sometime between there were the possibilities of starting a family.
As you know, things don't always go according to plan. But here is what we had already accomplished since year one...

My 28th birthday at the Melting Pot

Aaron's family comes to visit us!

My cousins wedding in Michigan

The Blue Man Group

My first ride on Aaron's new motorcycle 6-15-08

tHe FiRsT yEaR

I would be lying if I said that everything was perfect the first year of marriage, we had our moments and getting used to this whole two become one thing was sometimes a challenge for us. I can remember one real fight, if you would call it that, over money go figure! Overall, we were pretty happy and things were going great!

We were closer than ever, which I didn't think was possible and we started planning our future. The "plan" was off to a good start and in our first year we checked some major things off, including buying our own home! Aaron was also able to check off his masters. Here is a glimpse of our first year...