Whether the Devil May Care or not, it’s The Last Call for Love for one of our favorite restaurants.  I had never heard of the place before, but both Jen and my co-workers knew of it, and They Say It’s Wonderful.  I finally had a meal there and fell in Crazy Love with the place.  It quickly turned into our place whenever we were looking for Some Enchanted Evening, to the point that we had a Sentimental Baby shower there.  Come Rain or Come Shine, the food was always great and the portions excellent.  Located on Morehead St. East of the Sun, it was an easy place for us to reach The Second Time Around and beyond.  Unfortunately, as we became Strangers In The Night something changed and it became the Same Old Saturday Night that others could get elsewhere.  So last Friday, there was nothing left to say but It’s Over, It’s Over, It’s Over.  Even though The Sun Goes Down on our quaint little establishment at least the owners can look around and say I Did It My Way.

Our biggest regret is that We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye in time.

It is generally accepted between Jennifer and I that we became aware of each other around this time of October back in 1994 – 15 years ago.  Since that time we’ve been on the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together.  As the vows say, through thick and through thin.

I haven’t always been the easiest person to be around, but Jen has been my advocate, my supporter, my fan, and my friend.  She has seen me at my best and she has seen me at my worst.  She has encouraged me, kicked my butt, cheered me, and jeered me when each was appropriate.  Despite me being the problem child I was, we married 12 years ago, had children 7 and 4 years ago, moved multiple times, and are back home together where we want to be.

Over time, with her help, I have worked harder to become the man, husband, and father I should be.  She has been through the hardest working times with me, so as I’m finally beginning to see real changes in myself it is only fair that she is here to benefit from the payoff.  I hope never to be the person I used to be, and I want her to share in nothing more than the man I’m supposed to be.  She’s earned it for putting up with me all this time.

We’ve been pretty much disconnected to the real world over the last week, as both Ethan and Garrett have been sick.  Garrett in particular has been really sick, enough to land him in a bed at the WVU Childrens Hospital (Ruby Memorial Hospital).  Both had rattly chests filled with junk, coughs, low energy, and temperatures.  We had been giving both of then breathing treatments for asthma, but Ethan ended up with antibiotics from the urgent care doc.  This was last weekend (9/20) but things seemed to clear up for him, enough to go back to school Wednesday.

Garrett was a whole different animal.  Wednesday afternoon he comes home and promptly goes to sleep on our couch – a big red flag.  After awhile we take his temperature and it’s 102F+.   He gets Tylenol, and eventually goes to bed early – red flag #2.  Around 7:30pm he awakens and comes out complaining of his left lower ribs hurting.  This earns the trip to the urgent care facility, where we were hoping for a simple answer.  Oops.  They take one look at his vitals and offer Jen the choice of going to the ER via either her van or an ambulance.  Based on his instability (a heart rate above 180 and O2 stats around 90%), they prefer the ambulance in case he crashes.

At the Ruby ER all hell pretty much breaks loose, not from Garrett’s condition but of being a Level 1 Trauma center.  I like Mon General hospital for the quickness and privacy, but it’s quiet because Ruby gets the region’s nasty cases.  If they had gone in without being in the ambulance they might still be sitting there today.  As it was, they got a bed of sorts and entered a land of confusion and missed notations, basically a combination of shift changes and traumas.  They had good staff initially, but ended up with a quack who tried to discharge Garrett and his still unstable vitals.  Once Jen stands up and says WTF, a previous order to send him to Pediatrics finally got executed and upstairs he went.

WVU Childrens Hospital is an entire world away from ER’s, traumas, and other medical occurrences.  It’s painted with soft but bright colors, made to look as little like a hospital as possible, has flat screens and DVDs in most rooms, and has a wonderful indoor and outdoor (on the 6th floor, no less) activities room & program.  Oh, and because Ruby is a teaching hospital, there was an abundance of doctors, nurses, therapists, and students of each program to check in on the patients.  During the day I doubt we went more than 15-20 minutes without seeing someone from the staff.

We’ve both play-by-played the illness & treatment progression on Facebook, so here’s the summary.  Garrett was diagnosed with strep-pneumonia (strep infection in the lungs) and tachycardia (very high heart rate).  From Thursday morning to Saturday morning he got several different antibiotic IVs and fluid bags.  His pulse rate reduced from the 180s to around the 100-120 range, most likely at this point caused by the fevers.  The fevers would eventually break and not return as of this writing.  X-rays continued to show fluid buildups in his left lung, but as each day passed the fluid buildup kept reducing.  Even though he’s home he still has antibiotics to take, and he has multiple devices to use for breathing treatments.  He’ll have several followups with our normal pediatrician to make sure the infections & fluid disappear.

The Childrens Hospital is nothing short of awesome. Sometimes the teaching aspects can fill the halls with a few too many people, but with the sheer number of staff the patients get a lot of attention.  Most impressively, they’ve done a good job trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for the kids.  The activity room is large and has a ton of toys from infant to young adult.  Books, drawing supplies, movies, games, crafts, video game consoles, air hockey, foozball, internet, etc…and that’s the inside room.  Outside on the exhaust/boiler/service roof they’ve fenced off an area and built a great playground where the kids can get outside in the fresh air, and have covered the surface with the soft foam.

This is exactly the type of facility that if I had money or a foundation, I’d help support it.  Should I ever come into money, the focus I’ve always pictured for myself is helping area kids.  Uniforms, equipment, fields, computer labs, tutoring, after-school, etc….if it was related to The Kids I would be interested in helping it.  Even without much donatable money, we can still support them by donating toys in good repair that our own kids have outgrown.  People can think what they want about WVU, it’s schools, or their experiences elsewhere in the Ruby system.  We’ve had several bad experiences of our own in the ER before this one, and we’re not impressed with Ruby’s maternity ward.  None of those, however, are reason enough for me or my family to want to wish the Childrens Hospital ill will.  Having experienced many hospital stays, I’d rate this as either 1a or 1b along withGarrett’s birth and Jen’s postpartum at Carolinas Medical Center.

Also, being so tight with the University and the Athletic Department specifically, Garrett got an extra treat when the Mountaineer came by.  She saw all the kids on the floor, and earned brownie points by remembering who Garrett was.  After seeing him the nurses disconnected Garrett’s IV so he could go downstairs and get some ice cream.  When he made it back to the floor Rebecca saw him and said something like “Garrett!  Did you get ice cream?”

We still have a long road ahead of us, but for now we think the worst is over and now it’s just a steady recovery of energy and healthy cells.  Still, we’re glad this part is over.

From personal experience…an eerily accurate description on the effects of mood disorder medications, taken from the script of a recent TV show.

“[He] told us one time how taking his medication was like going through life with the laughter turned off.”

Unfortunately I can’t think of a better description.

I wrote a couple years ago about our old Isuzu Rodeo and how much I enjoyed driving her, no matter how bad of shape she was getting in.  As the years went on we actively put her on the selling block, after we inherited my recently deceased grandmother’s Corolla.  After all, there were more vehicles in the driveway than licensed drivers who owned the driveway.  Also, given the current economy, fuel prices, and overload of “green” images we figured to keep the Toyota for around-the-town driving.

A funny thing happened on the way to Craigslist, though.  It turns out that twelve year old SUVs with more than 120,000 miles are not hot sellers, no matter how low the price.  It also turns out that once people accept that an eight year old Toyota can only have 20,000 miles, it becomes a hot seller.  Within a day we sold it as we wanted to, which made our vacation much more comfortable.  Jen claims I subconsciously sabotaged the sale of the truck because I didn’t want to part with it, but in the end it was merely market forces.

It also meant that my old Rodeo got a god fixing up.  New brakes, fresh oil, new windshield, new battery, etc. goes nicely with a new registration & inspection sticker, so now the old gal is back on the road.  I for one am quite happy.  Yeah, she squeaks, creaks, and drinks gas by comparison, but we need a good 4×4 for winter around here.  (One of Garrett’s birthday parties made that plainly obvious.)  I know how she’ll respond to just about any driving condition imaginable, and the kids love riding in the backseat with the soft shocks.

There are also a lot of memories tied up in there.  Amongst a lot of other things, the Rodeo was the vehicle we took Garrett back home in for his first Christmas.  It helped move our friends several times and ourselves twice.  It took our dogs everywhere in the back end.  It was the vehicle we purchased by horse-swaggering a new dealership to take our crappy Neon.  It carried my old employee teammates to lunch in one vehicle more than once, and it was involved in several hairy mishaps at Lowes Motor Speedway with my father in law.

I’m sure my wife will read this and roll her eyes, but that’s OK.  We all have bonds with inanimate objects that’s more than just ownership.  Like I said a couple years ago, for many guys a car is more than a transportation method from Point A to Point B.  It becomes an extension of the driver.

And now I have my partner back.