Grab the kleenex y'all

Howdy gang,

                I have been working on this post for almost a month now. I had initially intended on posting it on October 3^rd, but it wasn’t quite ready at the time. I kicked around the idea of just holding on to it until mid November (for reasons that will become clear by the end of this post), but it has been kicking around in my brain and on my computer and I think now is really as good of a time as any I guess. All of this being said, you will quickly find that this is not my typical Fatterhood post. There won’t be much for humor this time, but I won’t lie to you…I am really putting my heart out for the entire Internet to see. There are parts of this story that only my wife and a handful of extremely close friends know; but seeing as it is a part of my history, it is now a part of Elizabeth’s. At heart I have always envisioned Fatterhood as an extremely long letter to Elizabeth. So…here I go and I hope you stick with me and enjoy the ride.

                On October 3^rd 2013, I got a call while I was at work from my Uncle/Godfather telling me that he and my Aunt had taken my Ma to the hospital due to unexplained profuse bleeding. I immediately asked if everything was okay and he said that there really wasn’t anything that I could do at that moment anyways. She was having some tests done and that the doctors had a few ideas, but that it didn’t sound like too much to worry about. Of course I worried. I finished out my shift at the Crimson Plus Sign and bolted to the hospital. She was resting comfortably in her room, talking and joking around with my Aunt and Uncle. There still weren’t any test results to be had, but they did start to give her a platelet transfusion that afternoon. We all sat and talked and eventually my Aunt and Uncle left to go home. My wife left work early too and met Ma and I at the hospital, but in true Ma fashion, she wanted us to go home since there wasn’t anything to do but wait anyways. I made her promise to call me as soon as she heard anything and my wife and I went home.

                Around 7pm that evening Ma called my cell and told me that the results were in and that she most likely had some form of leukemia. I knew immediately that no matter what she said that she was terrified because her 1^st fiancé had died of leukemia.  Not knowing what to say at such a moment, my caveman brain could only come up with, “Are you shitting me?”. He simply replied “No.” I asked what the game plan was, what she need from us, who was watching the dog, did she want me to come back to the hospital? I essentially asked ALL of the questions. My wife and I lived only a few miles from the hospital at that time so we raced back over to be with her while we figured stuff out. By the time we got there we found out that there was already a plan to send her to Mayo in Rochester Minnesota. If you aren’t from our neck of the woods, Mayo hospital in Rochester is world renowned for its medical care, the Pope had been seen there at one time and even Mr. Burns from The Simpsons went there, but you don’t go there for a cold. If you go to Mayo it means it is serious. They transported her there late that night and my wife and I went home and started working on our own game plan.

                The next day we set up a meeting with her new Doctor at Mayo in the late afternoon. Again, Ma didn’t want us “making a fuss over her” so she told us to stay home. I made the terrible choice of going to work instead of staying home. I figured at the time that I might as well keep my mind and hands busy instead of just pacing our apartment worrying, but since I was so distracted I was next to worthless at work. I couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn when it came to sticking needles in people. I was a wreck. My boss ended up sending me home early once I filled her in on what was going on. My wife and I packed up and hit the road to Rochester, that would end up being the 1^st of many, many, many trips.

                We got to Mayo and chatted with Ma for a bit before we met with the doctor. She seemed to be doing as well as one could expect given the situation. When the doctor came in he told us that they were 98% sure they knew what Ma had, which was Burkitt’s Lymphoma. Burkitt’s is a very rare but very fast moving disease that usually strikes children, but can affect adults. The doctor laid out his prognosis and treatment plan, it was then that he warned us that due to my mother’s age that treatment was about 50/50 and that if chemo was going to go bad that it was going to go bad very quickly, but if left untreated that she would also die sooner rather than later. He was still quite confident that the treatment would work, but that we should be aware of the risks and know what are different options were. He asked the 3 of us how we wanted to proceed. We looked at each other; Ma let out a big sigh and said, “Well, it doesn’t sound like have that many options now do we? Sign me up for the chemo.”

                The next month was just a blur. My wife and I were taking turns driving down throughout the week to visit her and then going down together on the weekends. I would have loved to take time off work just to be with her, but both my wife and I had to bring home the bacon so we could pay Ma’s bills. Not her medical bills of course, but she didn’t have any money coming in so we had to pay for the heat, electricity, home loan, etc. I became her power of medical so was fielding phone calls while at work dealing with donors. My wife was working round the clock filling out paperwork for medical assistance, disability, etc. We were exhausted, but Ma had been doing really well with her chemo. After a few weeks she got released to our care so she could stay at our apartment for a few days to help save on the cost of the hospital room. It was while she was home with us for those few days that she started to take a turn. She was tired, couldn’t eat, had terrible sores on her mouth, and her hair started to fall out. While she was home with us she had a follow-up doctor’s visit and one of her blood cultures came back with a bacterial infection. She was readmitted almost immediately as even a minor infection is deadly during chemo. That was pretty much the beginning of the end.

                I was cleaning at Ma’s house getting it ready for her eventual return when I got a call saying that Ma had a lung infection and was starting to have fluid buildup around her lungs so they needed my permission to put her on a ventilator. What else could I say but yes? My wife and I bolted down as soon as we could to see her and by the time we got down there she seemed to be doing at least a little better. She was off the ventilator and was breathing on her own again as the infection seemed to be fading. After 3 years I truly don’t remember what she said any more that pissed me off so bad, but she said something to me that I just wasn’t in the mood for. My wife and I had been busting ass and doing the best we could and it just wasn’t enough. I blew up at her and went out to the visitor’s room to grab some coffee and cool off. I came back and we said our goodbyes as everyone was just tired and drained emotionally/physically/mentally. I don’t recall if either of us ever said sorry or even if we said “I love you” since I inherited my bullheadedness from my mother. If only I had known that that would be the last time that we would be able to speak to each other…

                A short few days later I get a call saying that Ma’s infection had done some serious damage. I will spare you the details, but they were going to have to put her back on a ventilator and that she had taken a rather sharp turn for the worst. I was on a 3 day out-rotation at work and just happened to be close to the hospital so as soon as I was done at work I sprinted to the hospital. She really had taken a terrible turn. She was on the ventilator; she had slipped into what was essentially a coma, and was just genuinely a pitiful sight to behold. She continued to decline to the point that her organs weren’t pumping blood like they should so they put her on an ECMO machine which is a heart and lung bypass, this machine was breathing and pumping her blood for her. After a few days of the ECMO treatment, her team of doctors asked to meet with my wife and I to discuss prognosis and options. We were told that after 2 more days on ECMO if there wasn’t any improvement that there really would be no hope of improvement. They told us that due to her illness that organ transplants would be out of the question and that unless she made a miraculous recovery in those next 2 days, that they wouldn’t be able to continue the chemo treatment.

My wife took that as essentially a death sentence and was crushed. I had asked about a best case scenario. What would happen if we took her off everything? They said best case scenario is that we would have to leave her on a ventilator, that she would have minimal brain damage from the coma, but would be dead within a month since we couldn’t continue the chemo. After asking a few more questions I found out that their “best case scenario” meant that my mother would be fully aware of everything that was happening to her, but wouldn’t be able to talk or possibly communicate at all with us; that she would fully aware that she was dying in agony. As difficult as the decision was to make as a son that didn’t want to have his mother leave him, it was easy as a son that didn’t want his Ma to be in any more pain than she had to be. I had the opportunity while spending nights in the hospital with her to have some great conversations with Ma and she had made me promise to not let her become a vegetable. This of course was different as she was not vegetative, but it seemed even worse.

On November 13^th 2013, my wife and I ultimately made the decision to take her off the ventilator. My wife, uncle, aunt and myself were all at her bedside when she went and we were assured that due to the meds that gave her that she felt little to no pain at all. I don’t want to bum anyone out any more here, but when they show this type of scene in the movies it isn’t even close to how it plays out in real life. In the movies they “pull the plug” and the patient takes one last deep breath, closes their eyes, and exhales that last time and they are gone. In real life, once the ventilator is turned off you essentially suffocate. Your body struggles to find air and it is painful to watch. Of course I am not happy with how it turned out, but given what the alternative was, I would make the decision all over again.

We had Ma cremated and we did a celebration of life service in my hometown. I spent the whole thing drunk off my ass and biting my tongue at family and friends that I simply didn’t have the patience for. That being said, I did get to hear some amazing stories about Ma that I had never heard before, so not all of it was bad I guess. Throughout this whole ordeal I can’t stress enough how awesome my wife was. She was the rock that Ma and I clung to. Ma was scared and I was usually transitioning between drunk and hungover at any given point when I was off from work. She really held the whole thing together. We also received so much love and support from so many different people that I would have to start a whole other blog just to cover them all. Seriously, friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, the docs and nurses at the hospitals, and even total strangers all came out of the woodwork to help us. We got phone calls, texts, gift cards, gas cards, cards, emails, handwritten notes, pep talks, you name it and we got it. In the darkest of times the generosity of so many people went a long way in bringing some light into our world.

I seriously have enough stories about Ma to start a “Shit My Ma Said” blog. She taught me so much and set the bar for me personally as to what a parent should be. She gave be unconditional love and support mixed with a swift kick to the ass when needed. She was a tough woman that was strong her entire life that was what made the end of her life so hard to witness. Now, since I have thoroughly bummed you all out I think I should pull out one last story that shows the type of humor that my mother and I shared. When we were making her funeral arrangements the assistant funeral director (whom I have known most of my life, was in my cousin’s wedding and serves with my other cousin on the fire department…small town) asked how we would like her remains to be transported from Minnesota to our hometown in Wisconsin. I didn’t know how to answer. He explained that for a reasonable fee that one of the funeral home staff could drive to get her ashes in Minnesota and return them to Wisconsin or they could be mailed. I couldn’t help myself and I busted out laughing and between my guffaws and exclaimed “Mail her! Dear god yes! Mail her!” and I think he thought that I was just grieving. He explained some people aren’t comfortable with their loved ones going through the mail like that. I explained to him that the thought of Ma taking one last ride through the United States Postal Service and being delivered by our mailman of 20+ years was just too damn funny and Ma would have found it hysterical. The whole thing was so absurd that I just couldn’t contain myself.

I plan on doing one more Ma related post on November 13^th that I promise won’t be such a bummer. As always, I thank you all for reading and letting me get this out in to the open. Learn from my mistakes and make sure that you always tell the people in your life that are important to you that you love them. Check back soon for my glorious return to humor. Prost!

A Rose by any other name...

Howdy gang,

                Lately I have been getting a lot of questions about what we are going to actually call Elizabeth. I had mentioned in an earlier post that it has become a pretty big area of contention in our home. A commenter even suggested doing poll on the blog, which isn’t a bad idea by any means, but that person doesn’t know how bullheaded my wife or I can truly be. Let me lay it out there for you gang, Elizabeth Rose was named after my mother and grandmother for her first name. The middle name Rose is a long standing tradition in my wife’s family. We wanted to incorporate names that were important to both sides of our family when we named her. We had kicked around the idea of naming her directly after my Ma, so her name would have been Margaret Rose, but the idea of telling a “Little Marge” what to do was just too bizarre for me. We decided that Elizabeth, my mother and grandmother’s middle name would do perfectly. That was pretty much the last thing we agreed on in regards to her name.

                I originally had worked very hard to sneak a nerdy name in. Anyone that knows me and at this point, anyone that has read even a few blog posts, knows that I am a huge nerd. Almost every name that I suggested was promptly shot down. For the record though, I still firmly stand by the name River despite my wife’s strong opposition.  But I digress, I thought I was being sneaky still with the name of Elizabeth. While it isn’t nerdy per se, I just assumed that I would be able to call her Liz after Tina Fey’s character Elizabeth “Liz” Lemon from 30 Rock. How wrong I was. My wife wants to call her Eliza, which is nice, don’t get me wrong, but she just doesn’t seem like an Eliza to me. There are other ways to shorten of course, Beth is really popular one but for quite a few different reasons that I would prefer not to get in to here we shan’t be calling her Beth. Betty is also a shortened version of Elizabeth, which we both kind of like, but kids are dickheads so Ugly Betty is kind of inevitable. Which leads me to my next thought…

                The main thing my wife has against Liz is that it can be turned in to so many different things. Lizzy, Lizard, Blizzard, Liz-bian, etc. As mentioned before, kids are generally dickheads and will be cruel no matter what. Eliza is much more of a challenge, but for all we know by the time she get to high school, Eliza could be slang for a blowjob or something. I know a fellow by the name of Gaylord Johnson. Yes, you read that correctly. This gentleman is in his low 80’s and is a very nice guy, I am sure when he was born “Gaylord” was not slur that 8^th grade boys slung at each other nor was “Johnson” a euphemism for penis. Some times you just can't win. In all reality, Betty might be the safer bet considering by the time she gets old enough, most kids won’t even know the show Ugly Betty.

                It has only become such a thing in our house because daycare asked what we prefer her to be called. My wife overheard one of the daycare teachers call her Lizzy one day (a name we both don’t like) and despite my wife’s best efforts, she crinkled her knows like she was smelling a fart. For now, we told them just to call her Elizabeth as she has enough nicknames at home (Ewok, Da Butt, Little Bit, Gomer, etc.). I don’t recall if I mentioned this in an earlier post, but we did find out that they call her Queen Elizabeth at daycare, not because she is high maintenance, but because she is so well liked and well behaved. We were told that they look forward to her coming in because she is generally so happy-go-lucky and smiley. That was a huge pat on a back as a parent, but really I don’t think we can take credit for it as she has been chill and happy since she was born. Even today when I picked her up to go to the doctor’s office they said she was “a little cranky because of the teething…well…cranky for her”. They’ve told me more than once that her being cranky is still better than several of the other babies there on a good day. We really did luck out I guess.

                I think for the short term, my wife and I plan on just calling her Elizabeth along with our laundry list of nicknames. As she gets older and we see more of her personality form, our hope is that a short will present itself that fits her, even if it is Beth or Lizzy…but let’s hope not. In the meantime, she will be my little Ewok and snuggle buddy.

                Thank you all for reading, I hope to get at least one more post up sometime this week, but we will see how crazy this week can get. Either way, use this time to catch up on past posts and keep checking back. Don’t forget to check out Fatterhood on Facebook too! Prost!

SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS!

Holy shit gang,

                What a wild week it has been! I thought for sure I was going to find the time to get another post up last week, but life came and kicked me square in the junk. Work was hellacious and busy all week and then Ewok got some sort of stomach bug on Friday. She threw up a grand total of 10 times I believe and was just an all around crab ass all weekend. When she wasn’t being crabby she was sleeping which was kind of a plus I guess. Both my wife and I ended up getting sick as well though, we didn’t get the stomach part of it (thank God!), but both of use felt like total piles all weekend. Yet again, I must say that my wife is a freaking saint! Elizabeth was obviously sick and I had such a bad headache that I couldn’t move without my head feeling like it was going to explode (not to mention that out of 72 hours I slept for about 68 of them) so even though she wasn’t feeling well at all either, she was the caretaker by default. I may be implying that she wasn’t “that sick”, which is accurate to a point I guess. She felt better than Elizabeth or I did, but she still had a sinus headache that would have made Andre the Giant say “uncle” so I assume her Sainthood paperwork is in the mail from the Vatican. At least everyone is feeling good now.

                Anyways, I realized I forgot a pretty major update in my last post. Elizabeth has started on non-boob foods! So far we have only done mashed up squash and avocados, but she seems to really dig them both. We haven’t really given them to legitimately feed her, more just to get her used to the idea. She loves to grab chunks and play with it on her little tray and then suck off whatever is left on her fingers. She is SUPER curious now about any food that my wife or I have now. Uncle Ginger and Aunt Doc came over the other night and Ginger had a new whiskey for me to try. I was sampling it in a low-ball glass and the little gomer kept trying to take it from me! She also wants a French fry so bad that I can almost taste it (no pun intended…ok it was intended, but give me a break).  She is just so curious about everything now. She is constantly on the lookout for something to get in to. She is very responsive to any stimuli and seems very engaged with her surroundings. Obviously…she is a genius.

                Today we had our 6 month check-up. I know, I know, 6 months already! I don’t know where this time keeps going. Doctor said everything was looking really good and that she seems to be on track for everything. He did ask if she was starting to say “mama” or “dada” yet, and we told him that she is making those sounds, but hasn’t assigned them to either of us, she just makes those sounds while jibber jabbering. I was surprised, because he said that it still counts which seems odd. So far the smart money at our house is on her saying “Daddy” first as she will continuously say “dadadadadadadadada” all freaking day long. I know nobody will believe this, but I have actively tried to get her to say Mama first. I figured it is quite literally the least I can do considering that my wife carried her for 9 months, delivered her, only to have her come out looking and acting like me. Didn’t seem fair for her first word to be daddy too.  Anyways, she also had 4 shots today. She really took them like a champ. She cried of course, but it didn’t last long at all. Within 10 minutes we had her smiling and giggling. She is one tough little lady, just like her Mommy.

                I do have yet another humorous fat-dad fail to share. I had an office day yesterday, but since I was still feeling like twice microwaved shit I left work early and decided to pick up Elizabeth from daycare to get some extra snuggle time in. We came home and she demolished 4.5 ounces of boob juice and promptly passed out. She woke up about 45 minutes later in an especially good mood so we started to play. The new game that we play that she loves is “Jump”. I stand her up in my lap, hold on to her waist, bounce her a little, say “jump, jump, jump” and then raise her up above my head. She giggles and we have a good time. Well…this time when I raised her above my head she decided to spit up directly in my mouth! Before I continue this story, I feel I need to point out that it had been a full 45 minutes since she ate, she was in a good mood, and she wasn’t sick anymore. I thought I was in the safe zone. Nope. Anyways, I’m not sure if you have ever had a baby spit up directly in your mouth before, but it isn’t fun…especially when you yourself are not feeling good. I’ve never tasted my wife’s breast milk before, so I’m not sure if what was spit into my mouth was “good” or “bad”, but it was warm and fucking disgusting, so I quickly yet calmly laid her down on the floor and proceeded to projectile vomit in the toilet. Again…I wanted a freaking dog!

                Oh the joys of parenthood eh? As always, thank you for reading. Check out Fatterhood on Facebook for cute pictures of my Ewok and some random musings. And check back soon for another blog post. Thanks again, PROST!

U-G-L-Y your baby ain't got no alibi!

Howdy gang,

                Long time no blog eh? I will spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say I have been swamped lately. My wife and I have both been super busy at work, plus weddings, plus everything else that keeps popping up. I can’t believe it has been over 2 weeks since my last post though! So much has changed in that short amount of time. At my last post, Elizabeth had been doing some sitting by herself. She usually lost her balance and bounced her melon on the ground. But now…she is a sitting champ. She sits for 30+ minutes by herself and she loves playing with toys. She now fusses if we don’t sit her up and immediately give her toys to play with. She has all of the pieces of crawling down, but she seems to refuse to. She loves her crinkle elephant, her Sophie, her Brewers giraffe, and her stacking rings. She will roll over to them and pull them out of the toy box now. She has grown so much in such a short amount of time!

                She is still constantly jibber jabbering and has recently been really good at responding to her name. Up until the last 2 or 3 weeks it had been kind of hit or miss, but now she responds to it very well. She still gets very distracted when I am watching Supernatural, but she is just a really happy-go-lucky smiley baby. We have had a few issues lately with our nighttime routine. She had been sooooo good about putting herself to sleep and had been staying asleep for quite a while. She would usually go to bed around 7 pm and only wake up around 2am to eat and then go back to sleep. Now it has turned in to a crapshoot. She could be sleeping anywhere between 630-830pm and she might not wake up until 6am or she will wake up every 2 hours. I have my sneaking suspicions that she has another tooth coming in and that’s why she has been so hit or miss lately. God, I hope not though. She does a complete and total personality 180 when she is cutting new teeth.

                On a totally unrelated note, I may be really biased here, but I think Elizabeth is one of the cutest babies that I have ever seen. I have pretty much always been of the opinion that 95% of babies look like a cross between an old man and an alien. I still have that opinion by the way. Now of course, there is the other 5% of babies, your Gerber babies, your Ryan Reynolds’ babies, etc… which are undeniably adorable, but again, for the most part…they are all kind of ugly. I was immediately attached to my little Ewok from the moment I saw her, but as a newborn she still wasn’t all that cute. She was bald, covered in blood, some poop (not 100% sure where that came from), and had a scrunched up face. As she got older, her dimples came in, she became more facially expressive, and we started to notice that depending on the look she was throwing out she looked like either her mother or myself.

                Again, I am sure I am biased here, but I have had so many people that share my “most babies aren’t cute” opinion tell me how pretty she is. It has made me think that maybe it isn’t just my own bias and mix of hormones that are making believe she is so pretty. Now, I feel the need to back pedal just a little bit here. If you are a parent of a child that I called “cute” then I am sure you are now thinking to yourself, “That son of a bitch was lying to me when he called my son/daughter cute!”. That is not the case. Well…not exactly. I have many friends and family that did have legitimately cute babies. The others, it was a lie of omission. To be more accurate, I guess I should have said, “They are cute for an average baby”, but man does that sound dickish even for me. So please, put down your pitchforks and Molotov cocktails.

                On yet another unrelated note, I recently applied for a different position at the Crimson Plus Sign. It would allow me to be home with my wife and Elizabeth much more than my current job allows. Long story short, I don’t think I will be offered this position, but I had to jump at the opportunity. As much as I love my job, stress and all, I just don’t see myself being on the road forever. I can’t handle missing watching Elizabeth grow up. I will do what I have to do in order to put bread on the table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads, but at a certain point you have to draw a line and get your priorities straight. If my family doesn’t come first, then why am I working at all? Update to come on that in a week or two I guess.

                As usual, I thank you all for reading. Check out Fatterhood on Facebook and I should have time this week to get at least one more post up, so check back soon! Prost!

Dad goals

Hello all,

                I have another post in mind, but before I finish that one up I figured I would try to get a more humorous one up here. As I mentioned before in an earlier post, I had started what I referred to as a pre-baby book for Elizabeth. Back in March I had started to write her an entry with my “dad goals” in it, but stopped as I thought that perhaps some of my dad goals would be gender specific. As it turns out, boy or girl most of my goals remained the same. I decided to finish up that entry on here instead.

   1)      Take her to a concert.- I started going to concerts when I was 12 or 13. I’ve been to hundreds of shows and have seen hundreds of bands. I have slowed down on concerts over the last few years, but I still make it to a few every year. At one of the last concerts that I went to, I saw a dad and his son (I am terrible at guessing g ages, but the kid appeared to be no older than 10) making their way through the mosh pit. The kid’s dad had his arms squared up around his son and they were making their way to the very front by the stage. It was so cool to see.

   2)      I want to raise a nerd.- This may be a tall order as Elizabeth’s mother is not a nerd at all. I am unsure how I will accomplish this and to be honest, I won’t stop loving her even if she hates Star Wars. Although it might be harder to love her.

    3)      I actually want to raise a wise cracking smart ass.- I know… I will probably regret writing that once she is a teenager, but it is a trait that seems to run in my family. We are all a bunch of smart asses and for the most part we are all pessimists with a great sense of humor. I want that for my little Ewok as well. Not the pessimism, but the sense of humor.

    4)      I want to make her learn the value of hard work.- It will never happen, but if I ever did become a billionaire, I would still make Elizabeth work for her money. I am not a classist, but there is something to be learned from a hard day’s work. I worked and scrimped and saved for my 1^st car when I was 16. I bought a rusted out shit box that was 5 years older than I was. I loved that car though, because I earned it. My goal is to spoil the shit out of her without make her ungrateful.

     5)      I don’t want to watch Bubble Guppies.- If you haven’t seen current children’s programming then you are the luckiest bastard ever. My nieces love Bubble Guppies and I find the show a little disturbing. I find 98% of current children’s programming to be vapid and devoid of content and just generally mind numbing. My goal is to make sure that I don’t have to watch any of that bullshit.

    6)      Ditto for music.- I can’t stand any of that Raffie or Wiggles bullshit either. I know I can’t really listen to Rage Against the Machine with a toddler in the car, but I think there is a happy medium to be reached.

     7)      I promise to let her make mistakes.- This can be a tough one for any parent. I’ve learned (ironically enough from my mother allowing me to make so many mistakes) that a person can learn a lot more from making a mistake than they can from having something done for them. I’m not afraid to let her fail if I think a lesson can be learned from it.

I am willing to bet that I will think of many other dad goals as she gets older, but those are the ones that really stick out to me right now. I actually feel really dumb for thinking that any of these would be gender specific at all. Anyways, I will have another post up soon so check back. As usual, I thank you for reading, check out Fatterhood on Facebook and PROST!