B Positive: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICK!!!!

Ok. Here we go...you know the routine. On my kids birthdays, I always tell them the story of "the day you were born"...now YOU get to hear it too!

March 3, 1980
Actually, this story begins a few days earlier. February 29, 1980. I thought I was in labor, so we went to the hospital, spent the day walking the hallways trying to get my labor going - to no avail. I thought it would be kind of neat having a Leap Year baby..although NOW I know that Nick would have HATED that. He LOVES his birthday! He would have HATED waiting to celebrate his "real" birthday every four years...so it was NOT meant to be.
Three days later, my water broke in the morning - went to the doctor and he sent me home waiting for contractions to start. Donny got home from work, we had dinner and while we were eating they started. About 10 minutes apart. I told him it was time to go - so we got Melissa ready and as we walked out the door, my friend Nancy showed up delivering our Girl Scout Cookies (her wedding anniversary was that day).
We got in the car, headed to Jean (Donny's sisters) & Steve's to drop Melissa off.
After we dropped her off and started heading to the hospital, Donnys says
"Should we take Wayne Avenue, or should we take the highway??"
I said "I DON"T CARE HOW YOU GET ME THERE, MY CONTRACTIONS ARE 5 MINUTES APART. JUST GET ME THERE!"
And of course in those days, you didn't know ahead of time if you were having a boy or a girl - so we were excited to find that out too.
Arrived at the hospital at 7:36 (we have the receipt from the parking lot to prove it!) Nick was born at 8:47 p.m.! Easiest labor ever. Got my FIRST roses too.
He was a beautiful baby, and a mama's boy from DAY 1. (He'll tell you that today too!) Our family was complete. It was the third happiest day of my life!
(Wedding/Melissa/Nick in NO particular order!)

Drew helping his daddy blow out ALL the candles on his cake (as Drew started blowing out the candles, a HUGE stream of slobber came out of his mouth...finally convinced John that I gave him a piece from the OTHER side of the cake!)

As of yesterday, my youngest will always be older than my oldest. (Melissa never made it to 31...) Kind of weird, huh?

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These are some of my favorite pictures of Nick & Melissa together....you'd think they really LOVED each other. That's why I love these photos...it wasn't ALWAYS like this....

Awww...look how happy they all are!

Having fun under the tv stand!

This photo? Melissa looks A LOT like Drew and Nick looks like Max!!!

In our backyard on Meriline...

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With my birthday present...BANDIT.

Sitting on the Ferris Wheel...TOGETHER...(I think at Kings Island)

Coloring Easter eggs with dad...

Relaxing at my cousins (Sharon & Jims)

I think Nick was in 6th, she was in 8th grade...this is the "Millenium Falcon" haircut that she hated...

Christmas - high school (I think Nick's freshman, her junior year)

This photo was taken at Indian Lake - I think right after she was diagnosed...

This was taken at Mere's brother's wedding...6 months before Fort passed away...hard to believe she looked THAT good (NICK too :o)

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Donny...POST-surgery

Yesterday Donny was scheduled for a "routine" shoulder surgery. Repairing some torn tendons/ruptured tendons to his rotator cuff. It was ANYTHING but routine...Surgery was supposed to be about an hour. Started at 1:30. Doc came out about 3:30 - with a grave look on his face. When I asked how it went- "Not good. Oh, the shoulder is repaired (and he gave me all the medical terms which I didn't understand), but we had a really difficult time intubating him. It took longer to intubate him than it took to do the surgery. One Anesthesiologist and two Anesthetists...we had to start the surgery over 3 times. And his blood pressure went up to 200/128. His blood pressure was all over the place".
He was out of surgery at 3:15, I didn't get to see him until 6:30. He was having trouble breathing when he got out of surgery, so he was on oxygen for about 4 hours.
Thought he might be spending the night at the hosptial. Around 8:30, he was able to eat some pudding and take a pain pill, so they got him ready to go home.
Called Nick to get some pudding/jello/ice cream and he was waiting for us when we got home and got Donny into the house.
Funny story to end this saga...
he was up about every two hours last night (either to pee or get his pain meds) He is wearing this "contraption"- a sling - it has a place for this rubber ball that will be part of this therapy. WELL. He was peeing and I left him alone for a minute, came back to see if he was ok and the ball was in the sink. He said
"Can you rinse that off? I need to work on my ball handling skills..." it obviously fell in the toilet...(being the running backs coach he preaches that EVERY day..) STILL has a sense of humor even with all the pain - just like Fort!

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My new FB friend, Steve Murray, sent me a correction to my post about our visit to Jacksonville (I asked for more info about the coin he gave dad):

"Hey Pam! yeah, we need to get the story on the blog straight! LOL You met a few medics from USS BUSH, but I'm a Command Master Chief at HSC-9, a helicopter squadron that's embarked on BUSH for cruise later this year. The coin I gave Irv is my CMC Chief Petty Officer coin and it's from my command. As Chiefs, we give these away RARELY, but of course, Irv was an exception! I hope all is well with you and the family. I know it was fate meeting y'all and my kids LOVE their bracelets! Please keep us posted on you and Fort's blog!"
Thanks Steve for getting the correct information to me! (OH, and for those of you who don't know, my brother Steve passed away in 1975...so meeting THIS Steve kind of had a special meaning...PLUS getting the coin was a bonus!)

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