Week 2, What I Want to Remember

My dad is sick. I don’t know whats going to happen or how each day is going to unfold, every morning is a guess. We wait until the phone rings and dad calls to tell us about his night and how he is feeling. When he had a good night and feels good, our day is lighter and more hopeful. When he calls and has been throwing up or is tired, fear looms over us, wondering what it means. Every day people ask me how I’m doing and I am not sure how I’m supposed to answer that. I have no means to complain, I’m healthy and have the world at my feet. Compared to my dad, I’m doing good. But the truth is, my heart hurts. Every day I feel as though I’m living a nightmare and that I would give anything to just wake up from it and have everything be as it should. My world is upside down right now and I don’t know how to make it right. I want my dad home. I want my dad healthy. And I don’t know how to do it. My days are filled with worry, regret, hope, confusion, sadness, wonder…its a constant ferris wheel for me and I just wish I could get off. How can all of this be happening? Why can’t his body just start working again like it did before surgery so he can get out of the hospital and get healthy again?

Tonight, while at dinner with my inlaws, I was looking at photos I took last winter/spring and I could feel happiness and hope and excitement come thru my photos. I was newly married, settling in to life on the farm, and life felt so good. Every photo was pure happiness. Now, fast forward one year and every day is a struggle. My heart breaks when I think about my mom and dad and their daily struggle of trying to find a way to cure my dad and get back to a normal life. Each day is the same, wake up, wait for his phone call, get ready, go to the hospital and wait..
What are we waiting for? Someone to tell us what to do. What we should expect next. Waiting for someone to give us hope. Its a dark time for our family, thats a cold hard fact. But the other fact is, we are a strong family. We will persevere. I won’t give up. If dads bowels think they have dad beat they can guess again because I am his daughter and I need him. My future children need him and I won’t give up. Ever.

When it comes to Project Life this year, I’m curious to see how 2013 develops. So far, its week 2 and I can already see how my album is reflecting the ups and downs of our current state of affairs. Every day is different. Every day is a gift. Tonight, while eating dinner, my inlaws were talking about the farmhouse and what Adam and I were going to do to it once we could finally move in. And thats when it hit me. My life is going to go on. No matter what happens tomorrow, my life is still happening..with or without my effort. I have so much ahead of me and so much to do. It almost shocked me. No matter what happens here….its part of my story. Its something I will look back on as an older lady and say…”I got through it”. And it scared me but relieved me at the same time. I can do this. We, as a family, can do this. My dad can do this. We just have to be willing to fight.

This week hasn’t been extremely memorable. But its still one I want to document. So, with that, here are a few of the things I’d like to remember about week 2 of 2013:

-I want to remember getting a sore throat and a head cold on Monday that kept me from visiting my dad and forcing me to take a break and come back to the farm on Tuesday. I was heartbroken that my body had given up on me when I needed it but I know that mentally, I needed this
-I want to remember coming home with Adam and Jake on Tuesday and finding drywall dust cover every single belonging we owned. It was shocking and maddening, but it immediately gave me something to do to keep my mind busy..and I’ve been cleaning ever since
-I want to remember not sleeping barely a wink all week. The drywall mudders worked til 2 am this week and I just laid in bed, waiting for sleep to hit me
-I want to remember coming home tuesday and having my MIL tell me my little girl, Dharma (the cross beaked hen) wasn’t acting well. And, upong inspecting her myself, I was worried we had yet another chicken that needed to be put down. But, thankfully with some love and extra food, she has seemed to pull through
-I want to remember the blizzard warning we were under Wednesday and Thursday that finally yesterday. It left us with 8 ft snowbanks and lots, and lots of snow
-I want to remember my inlaws inviting us for dinner last night (Saturday) and we had king crab legs that were delicious. I enjoyed myself and the 3 glasses of wine I downed tremendously…I needed it.
-I want to remember getting busy with my life on the farm and allowing myself the spare moments to be excited about something in life. Future plans, trips, etc. Being away from the city and the hospital has given me the opportunity to cleanse my mind and find some peace again
-I want to remember calling my dad every couple of days to check on him and the sound of his voice just makes my day. No matter what hes going through, he is always so positive. I wish the best for him and I hope that we get things figured out quickly…because, he just deserves the world
-I want to remember slowly taking down my Christmas trees this week. I want them gone because Christmas was so hard this year but I’m nostaligic at the same time because Christmas has always been so special to me
-I want to remember researching and researching and researching things to help out my dad this week..I have learned more health terms than I ever cared to know before. Postoperative Ileus? Bowel Obstruction? I’ve learned all about them..

So yeah…not exactly a wonderful week to document..but a week none-the-less. Like I said, this is my life, its part of my story..and it deserves to be documented forever. I am hoping for better results/news next week and am hoping to get over this head cold soon so that I can rejoin my family in the city and work to get my Daddio healthy again. Pray for him my friends…every little bit helps!

Heres to a better week filled with lots of love and happiness…