My last post was my first one in a long time.  It wasn’t what I had planned on for my first post back, but I needed to vent about my stressful day.  And after dealing with another close call with Ben, I realized that I needed to make more of an effort to get back to what I love. I kept putting off my blog because I felt like I didn’t have the time to create the posts I wanted. I’m such a perfectionist! Most of my posts take me a couple days to complete. I really wasn’t using my blog how I originally intended.  I wanted to use this as place for me to write (type) about what I’m going through in my life.  Kind of like a journal. It was suppose to be a way for me to do what I love to do – write….

I got too caught up in what people might think about what I post, how my blog looked, what I should post, etc… It took me further and further away from just writing.  So I’ve decided to do what I wanted to do in the first place. Write.  Hopefully that means I’ll be posting more, but I make no promises. There will probably lots of rants and craziness. It’ll be a little more raw and open – not so calculated.  I can’t let what others might think stop me from doing what I want. Again, I remind everyone that I will be sharing my opinions – we are all entitled to our opinions.  You don’t have to agree or like what I post.

Life really is too short to Not to what you Love.

I don’t care if my blog gets a million views or not. I’m not doing this for a fan base.  But if one person out there connects with what I share – if something I post made you laugh, cry, or stop for a second and think twice – if through one of my posts, I help someone in some way, then I consider my blog a success.  We all want to feel connected – to something.  It’s always nice to know that you are Not alone.

I know that what I’m dealing with Ben, isn’t the worse thing. I know that there are those who are suffering worse, much worse. I am very grateful that we live in a time that saving his life is even possible.  Writing about it helped me work through my emotions. I tend to hold things inside until a boiling point so hopefully this will help me from doing that.  I’m always working to improve myself in every aspect.

It’s time for a change for the better :-)

* Update on Ben:

He’s out of ICU and in MedSurg. He has to stay at least one night since he tore his stomach in the same area as last time.  They were not 100% sure they closed it up all the way since there was a lot of blood in the area and Ben was retching the whole time.  They didn’t knock him out like last time so he was awake the whole time they were fixing him :-/  He can walk around and on a liquid diet. As long as his blood levels stay normal and there are no signs that there is bleeding going on, he will hopefully come home tomorrow :-)  We spent a few hours with him today. This room was a little bit easier for the boys to hang in out in.  It’s actually the same exact room he recovered in last year.  The lady at the food court recognized the boys.  Ben can’t wait to come home and neither cane me :-)

Happy that he gets to “eat” – broth, tea, and jello.

“I think it’s happening again.” This was my wakeup call from Ben. I was instantly awake. I knew that I was either picking him from work or meeting him at the hospital.  He was having all the symptoms of a GI bleed – just like last year: Dark stool, nausea, light headedness, and spitting up blood.  Woke the boys up, got them dressed, and headed to the ER.

There he was again in a hospital bed with IVs and tubes. But at lease he wasn’t white as a ghost. We went over all the things he had done the last couple weeks trying to figure out what could have happened.  We wondered if he had somehow reopened his last tear.  The doctor examined him and confirmed that he was bleeding internally. Now the question was how bad was it.  Last year was a really bad tear right over an artery.  He lost so much blood. It was probably one of the scariest things we’ve gone through.  And we were reminded of it again today.

I didn’t want to leave Ben at the hospital by himself, but I couldn’t keep the boys settled down so I took them home while we waited for the endoscopy.  Waiting has to be one of the Worst things in the world. At home, I just wanted to cry, but I had to be strong for the boys.  Seppe is such an empath and he was very sensitive and moody all day.  Being sad in front of him would have made him fall apart.  I think Gio just buries it inside himself, but lashes out without knowing why.  Needless to say, they were both a bit difficult today.  Not that I had a lot of patience or energy to deal with it.  For most of the day, I felt like I was just hanging on to a thread to keep it all together.

While we waited, I thought about how it was the same but different from last year.  Things weren’t that great between us leading up to last year’s incident.  I was so irritated with Ben all the time. But as soon as I got that phone call from his boss, all the frustration with him vanished.  Nothing mattered except for him being ok and coming home.  It really helped put Life back into perspective for us.  This time around, things have been great for us.  I feel so lucky to wake up next to him every morning.  Life was great…..

But Life doesn’t like to give us a break. A part of me knew something like this was going to happen. Things were already starting to go downhill, starting with the news from our dental office that we had an outstanding balance of $2000 (more on that later).  When it rains it pours for us. We’ve been trying to stay positive with the dental office situation, hoping that the matter would be cleared up with our insurance. And then this happens….

I find myself asking why??? Why can’t we just catch a break? Why this nightmare again? Even though the bleeding was stopped and he didn’t lose as much blood, it was just as terrifying. The possibility of losing him was Still there.  I’m not sure how many more times he can go through this. And that’s what scares me the most.  They can’t say exactly what caused the tear, but they think it’s most likely due to the ibuprofen he took a few days ago.  He normally doesnt take anything besides tylenol but he had an infection that had his head swollen up pretty bad and he took the ibuprofen to help relieve the pressure. But there’s no guarantee that if we do everything we’re suppose to, that this won’t happen again.  His stomach is just so weak now.  Life really sucks sometimes.