Well...now that I feel I've at least covered some of the basics of how the Felax 5 came to be, I thought it would be fun to tell some stories about some of the more interesting/funny/disturbing things that have happened over the years. These stories will be much shorter than the blogs I've posted before, but hopefully they can make you laugh a little. I'll warn you about this one...it's gross as hell...so if you've got this image of all of these blog posts as being heart-warming or emotional...you may want to stop right here.
I always tell people that the best form of birth control would be to have teenage kids come and live the life of a parent...especially in our house. Those of you with young kids or even older kids are nodding your head right now and saying, "That's for DAMN sure!" Teenage pregnancies seem to be becoming more and more of a trend, but here is the problem. Number one, teenagers ASSUME their babies will be healthy and that there will be no problems at all. They don't have the foresight to see potential problems that may come their way. Any time I talk to young kids about the dangers of having kids so young, I ask them a simple question as it relates to our family: "What if you have a kid that has Cystic Fibrosis? What about Cerebal Palsy? Or any other life changing disease or condition for that matter?" Holly and I can handle it because I have a job with good benefits and Holly can stay home with them...but what if you're in high school and this happens?
Secondly, there seem to be many teenage girls that "just want somebody to love". Yeah yeah yeah...I've heard it all before. "Babies are sooooo cuuuuuttteee!....OHMYGOSH, he/she is adorable!!....I WANT ONE!" They only see the cute side of babies, when their parents have them all dressed up in little adorable outfits and are parading them around for the world to see. They only see them when they are sleeping comfortably or giggling for mommy and daddy. What they DON'T see is the "other" side. Yeah...all the parents are nodding again...you know what I mean...the "other" side of having kids. And I'm not just talking about the sleepless nights and crying for mommy either. I'm talking about the drooling, burping, barfing, shitting, and pissing side of the babies. Yes, it may sound vulgar, but it's just true. If you've ever had kids, you know that they have a distinct ability to KNOW when they are getting changed, because they wait until that precise moment to piss all over you. Furthermore, they always seem to do it that ONE TIME that you think it's safe to do it on the bed instead of the changing table.
My first story of the disgusting side of kids is one I like to call...gravy legs. We bought Nolan one of those cute little "Exersaucer" things that all kids seem to have nowadays. For those of you that don't know what they are, it's pretty much what it sounds like. There is a plastic saucer that is face up on the ground, and it has three or four posts on the outsides of it that hold a little seat for the baby to play in. The seat pivots 360 degrees and there are toys all around it that keep the little boogers busy for at least a little while. Well, we had one of these exersaucers in our basement for Nolan, and Kennedy was downstairs with him. After a little while, we hear Kennedy yelling, "MOM! DAD! I THINK NOLAN POOPED. IT SMELLS REALLY BAD." Well, those of you that are parents also know that sometimes the worst thing you can do is immediately change a poop diaper because there is probably a good chance he or she is not done filling it. On this particular day, waiting that extra five minutes was a huge mistake.
Holly and I were pre-occupied with something else at the time, and a few minutes later, we hear Kennedy yell again, "MOM, DAD, I'M PRETTY SURE HE POOPED FOR SURE...IT SMELLS REALLY BAD!" So at this time, I thought I'd better go and take care of it. I walked down into the basement and immediately smelled what the Nolan had been cooking. He was pounding his feet and having a good old time, acting as though everything was normal. I casually walked over to him and grabbed him under the arms to lift him out of the seat, but as soon as I lifted him about 8 inches up, I knew something was terribly wrong. I could see some of the "brown business" seeping out of the diaper, so I set him back down and figured I'd better call for backup. Just as I started yelling for Holly to come help out, I noticed a strange sound as Nolan started pounding his feet into the bottom of the saucer. Yeah...it was kind of a "mushing" sound. I craned my neck down to see what was going on and that's the first time I've ever seen the phenomenon that I now refer to as "gravy legs". When I grabbed Nolan to pick him out of the saucer, I didn't get him far enough out to see how bad this mess really was...and it was bad. Nearly everything that his little body could let loose at one time was now all over his legs and about an inch deep in the bottom of the saucer. "HOLLY, YOU'D BETTER HURRY!!!"
Holly came into the basement and she was immediately astonished. Here is where anyone WITHOUT kids would probably get sick and puke...but those WITH kids know the feeling all to well. We had never seen that much crap in our lives, and Holly grew up on a farm. At first, we didn't know what the hell to do...where do you even start. Well...drastic times call for drastic measures, so we took action. I immediately picked Nolan up and held him at an arms length until I was confident that he wasn't dripping all over the place. Holly grabbed the exersaucer and we both headed upstairs. At the top of the stairs, I hooked a left toward the bathtub and Holly hooked a right toward the door to outside. I got Nolan into the bath, fully clothed, and just started hosing him down like someone that had been exposed to radiation (at this point, being exposed to radiation seemed like a pretty good alternative). Holly took the saucer out into the driveway, turned on the hose, and just went to work. At this point, I probably should apologize to any of our neighbors that may have seen that thing. It was simply disgusting. We got everything cleaned up, disinfected, deodorized, and dried off...but unfortunately nothing can remove the image of Nolan's gravy legs from our minds.
The second incident pretty much speaks for itself...and needless to say it deals with the same topic as the prior one. So, in short, if you are disgusted or you don't like reading about horrible stories of child rearing...just click on that little X up in the upper right hand corner of your screen.
One of the interesting things about Nolan's Cerebal Palsy is that he is VERY sensitive to the touch, especially on places like his hands or feet. I used to always put his hands on my face a day after shaving and it made him giggle and squirm in the cutest way. It seemed like every part of his body was very sensitive to things like that, so we liked to activate those sensors as much as possible. One way that I used to do this on his legs was something I did while changing his diaper. As he would lay on the bed for me to change him, I would grab the bottom of his pajamas or pants and start to count slowly to three. He would start giggling immediately because he knew what was coming. Instead of pulling them off slowly to change him, I would count to three and yank his pants upward and forward really quickly and they would come flying off. The feeling of the pants on his legs would make him laugh hysterically, and it made my day to see him giggle...so why not.
Well, one day in particular, this little trick backfired in a miserable way. Nolan had obviously brewed up something special based on the stench that was coming from him. At this point, common sense should have taken over and I should have been a little more careful with this one, but for some reason, I disregarded common sense at this time. I laid him on the bed and grabbed the cuffs of his pants down by his ankles and started counting. ONE! Nolan giggled. TWO! Nolan giggled even more. Aaaaannnddd....THREE! I yanked on the pants and Nolan laughed hysterically. However, what I didn't count on was the fact that his diaper wasn't particularly effective at this point, and I got a little more than I bargained for...OK, I got WAY more than I bargained for.
It turned out that Nolan's pants were FILLED, and when I yanked his pants off, it created a bit of a "whiplash" effect, and everything that was inside his pants went for a little ride. If you don't know what I mean, imagine taking a paintbrush and dipping it in a can of paint. Now take the brush, hold it out in front of you, and quickly yank it upward and toward you as though you were raising your hand to answer a question in school. What's going to happen to the paint? Yeah, it's going to go ALL OVER the place...and that is what happened to the crazy disgustingness that had leaked into Nolans pants.
It was horrible. It was beyond horrible. I spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to cover my tracks. It was all over the sheets, the walls, and the floor. It was everywhere...and when I finally convinced Holly (who was in the house at the time) that I was done with the cleanup, she came into the bedroom to inspect. It all looked ok until she looked up. Yeah, that's right...until she looked up. On the ceiling, I somehow missed a trail of poo that had flung up onto our WHITE drywall. It was in a near perfect straight line and there was a lot of it...which made the cleanup even more intense and laborious. We've had to clean pants, towels, bed sheets, and even an exersaucer after messes by the kids, but this was a first. It was as though a shit sprinkler had gone off all over our bedroom. Chalk this one up to a lesson learned!
I'm sorry for the graphic nature of this post, but it's just one of the added joys of being a parent. There is no love like the love you feel for your own child, but we all know there are moments when you can't help but wonder..."What the hell was I thinking?" And these were two of them:)
Until next time....
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Holly the Great
A couple years ago, I posted a "note" on Facebook entitled, "Holly Felax the Great"...and I think it is worth reposting on this blog as it has a lot to do with why our family works the way it does. I will go through and update/change details that need to be changed, but I'll try to leave it as intact as I can. I've posted a couple of times on FB...I'm sorry for the redundancy, but Holly seems to think that I make her out to be a "big meanie" in all of my blog posts. I tried to explain to her that she IS a big meanie, but she didn't go for it. Anyway, here is a re-posting of "Holly Felax the Great" from 2009....short and to the point.
Today at school when I told the students that I needed to call my wife after class, one of them asked the question, "Does your wife work?" My answer was, "That depends on your definition of work, but I'll tell you this, she works harder than anyone I know."
I wish there was some way to get everyone I know...friends, family, etc....to understand exactly how much Holly does for our family. The reason I wish this is because I think she is very misunderstood and definitely underestimated. To be honest, I don't know how she does it all and maintain an sanity at all. When things go bad, she is the one to maintain the voice of reason and evenness. Like the time that Kennedy had a HUGE head board fall on her. I pretty much freaked out when I saw the gash over her eye, but Holly calmly put a towel over it and calmly took her to the van. Or the time that our cat Charlie got hit by the car and ran/limped under our neighbors porch. I couldn't even go near him for fear of what I would see and Holly calmly walked over and pulled him out with his leg dangling precariously. She calmly put him in the cat cage and took him to the vet. Or even a couple years ago when Nolan had his first seizure in the van. I was horrified...pretty much crying and pissing myself the entire time...and Holly stayed calm and kept the girls calm. How she does it amazes me...but we wouldn't survive without it.
Those of you that knew Holly in high school knew that she was known for being a bit of a "wild child". She was probably the last person you'd ever think would have any kids, but as soon as Cheyenne was born her whole life began to revolve around her. Here we are now, two more kids and 13 years later, and her life still revolves around them. Now, it's not a rare thing to have a mother that does everything for her kids, but being in a situation like our family is definitely rare. The amount of work that is required of Holly on a daily basis is staggering. Sadly, there are people I know that think you're not a "success" if you don't work and make money for your family, but what she does for me and the kids on a daily basis is immeasurable.
Take Kennedy for example. Each and every day, she needs approximately 2 to 3 hours of treatments, nasal rinses, and other CF related chores, in addition to taking 20-30 pills a day. I do as much as I can by helping with things, but I seriously wouldn't know what the hell I was doing without Holly. She sees to it that all of the "other" CF related things are taken care of as well: Sanitizing everthing, boiling nebulizers, ordering pills, taking care of medical bills, seeing to it we get reimbursed for every penny we are owed (even if it's just a 2 dollar parking cost), and the list goes on and on. These are just the chores that need to be done all the time...but what about when Kennedy is sick? There are many nights where Holly is up until at least 3 or 4 o'clock with Kennedy because she won't stop coughing...giving treatments, medicine, and just being there for her. It would be easy to come get me up and have me help out, but she makes the sacrafice so that I can be mildly coherent for work in the morning. When Kennedy is on IV's at home, Holly spends an extra hour giving her medicine, three times a day...usually at midnight, 8 AM, and 4 PM. The medicine takes about an hour each time, so she's up in the wee hours of the morning many times. In addition, the medicine needs to be taken out of the fridge about 4 hours before she gives it, so she'll get up around 4 AM to get the medicine ready for the 8 AM dose. Honestly, it quite simply insane.
Then along came Nolan. No CF, but Cerebal Palsy. At one point, Nolan had 5 or 6 therapy appointments every week, every day except for Thursday. Holly drove him 25 minutes one way for a 45 minute appointment, sometimes two. Add in the time to get Nolan ready, then to get home and do all of the "normal stuff", and each and every day of her life is filled with insanity. Lets not forget that she goes out of her way to make sure that Nolan gets therapy work at home and makes sure that all of the kids feel special like only the way a mother can...playing games with them, laughing with them, and making sure that each of them know they are loved.
In addition to the hours of therapy and treatments with Kennedy, the hours of travel and therapy with Nolan, and making sure to spend time with Cheyenne...there are the "regular" things...doctors appointments, dentist visits, haircuts, etc. that Holly makes sure are always taken care of. If all of this were left up to me, the kids would have hair to their ankles and their teeth would be falling out. I wish I were kidding.
The one part of her life that is MOST difficult is the fact that everything she does for the kids is at the expense of her own personal life. Neither of us do a heck of a lot outside of the house, but at least I have time at work to be around other adults and get away from the madness of our lives. Holly often gets sad and depressed and there is nothing that I can really do for her except tell her I love her and thank her for everything she does. She often feels misunderstood and underappreciated, as well as sometimes feeling a sense of worthlessness because she doesn't "work outside the home". Sadly, as I mentioned before, there are others that may think that as well, but I can assure you it couldn't be further from the truth. I cannot tell you how much it means to me to know that my kids are always being taken care of by the one person that knows how to do it best. I can go to school every day and know that they are being cared for without worrying one iota about their well being. That sense of security makes me happy beyond words.
When I was asked that question by the student today, it somehow made me really think about Holly and all she does, and I felt as though I should share it. Holly and I have had our rough times like every marriage does, but the struggles we've been through have made our relationship stronger. She IS misunderstood. She IS underappreaciated. But I can assure you that no one living in this house feel that way about her. Cheyenne idolizes her and looks up to her more than anyone. Kennedy understands how much Holly does for her and even though her young body is often blasted by sickness and medication, she always feels safe and happy with Holly. And Nolan...well...if you want to see a little boy light up like a Christmas tree, just have Holly walk up to him and say hello. That leaves me:) As much as I tease her about nagging me too much and taking out all of her frustrations on me, every time I see her I know how lucky I am to have such a caring and loving wife and mother to be in my life.
Just so you know, Holly will hate me for writing this. She isn't in to "mushy" stuff or taking credit for something that she feels like is her motherly responsibility. Also, I can assure you that I've only scratched the surface of what she does for us, but I feel better getting it off my chest.
I love you Mrs. Felax.....
I wish there was some way to get everyone I know...friends, family, etc....to understand exactly how much Holly does for our family. The reason I wish this is because I think she is very misunderstood and definitely underestimated. To be honest, I don't know how she does it all and maintain an sanity at all. When things go bad, she is the one to maintain the voice of reason and evenness. Like the time that Kennedy had a HUGE head board fall on her. I pretty much freaked out when I saw the gash over her eye, but Holly calmly put a towel over it and calmly took her to the van. Or the time that our cat Charlie got hit by the car and ran/limped under our neighbors porch. I couldn't even go near him for fear of what I would see and Holly calmly walked over and pulled him out with his leg dangling precariously. She calmly put him in the cat cage and took him to the vet. Or even a couple years ago when Nolan had his first seizure in the van. I was horrified...pretty much crying and pissing myself the entire time...and Holly stayed calm and kept the girls calm. How she does it amazes me...but we wouldn't survive without it.
Those of you that knew Holly in high school knew that she was known for being a bit of a "wild child". She was probably the last person you'd ever think would have any kids, but as soon as Cheyenne was born her whole life began to revolve around her. Here we are now, two more kids and 13 years later, and her life still revolves around them. Now, it's not a rare thing to have a mother that does everything for her kids, but being in a situation like our family is definitely rare. The amount of work that is required of Holly on a daily basis is staggering. Sadly, there are people I know that think you're not a "success" if you don't work and make money for your family, but what she does for me and the kids on a daily basis is immeasurable.
Take Kennedy for example. Each and every day, she needs approximately 2 to 3 hours of treatments, nasal rinses, and other CF related chores, in addition to taking 20-30 pills a day. I do as much as I can by helping with things, but I seriously wouldn't know what the hell I was doing without Holly. She sees to it that all of the "other" CF related things are taken care of as well: Sanitizing everthing, boiling nebulizers, ordering pills, taking care of medical bills, seeing to it we get reimbursed for every penny we are owed (even if it's just a 2 dollar parking cost), and the list goes on and on. These are just the chores that need to be done all the time...but what about when Kennedy is sick? There are many nights where Holly is up until at least 3 or 4 o'clock with Kennedy because she won't stop coughing...giving treatments, medicine, and just being there for her. It would be easy to come get me up and have me help out, but she makes the sacrafice so that I can be mildly coherent for work in the morning. When Kennedy is on IV's at home, Holly spends an extra hour giving her medicine, three times a day...usually at midnight, 8 AM, and 4 PM. The medicine takes about an hour each time, so she's up in the wee hours of the morning many times. In addition, the medicine needs to be taken out of the fridge about 4 hours before she gives it, so she'll get up around 4 AM to get the medicine ready for the 8 AM dose. Honestly, it quite simply insane.
Then along came Nolan. No CF, but Cerebal Palsy. At one point, Nolan had 5 or 6 therapy appointments every week, every day except for Thursday. Holly drove him 25 minutes one way for a 45 minute appointment, sometimes two. Add in the time to get Nolan ready, then to get home and do all of the "normal stuff", and each and every day of her life is filled with insanity. Lets not forget that she goes out of her way to make sure that Nolan gets therapy work at home and makes sure that all of the kids feel special like only the way a mother can...playing games with them, laughing with them, and making sure that each of them know they are loved.
In addition to the hours of therapy and treatments with Kennedy, the hours of travel and therapy with Nolan, and making sure to spend time with Cheyenne...there are the "regular" things...doctors appointments, dentist visits, haircuts, etc. that Holly makes sure are always taken care of. If all of this were left up to me, the kids would have hair to their ankles and their teeth would be falling out. I wish I were kidding.
The one part of her life that is MOST difficult is the fact that everything she does for the kids is at the expense of her own personal life. Neither of us do a heck of a lot outside of the house, but at least I have time at work to be around other adults and get away from the madness of our lives. Holly often gets sad and depressed and there is nothing that I can really do for her except tell her I love her and thank her for everything she does. She often feels misunderstood and underappreciated, as well as sometimes feeling a sense of worthlessness because she doesn't "work outside the home". Sadly, as I mentioned before, there are others that may think that as well, but I can assure you it couldn't be further from the truth. I cannot tell you how much it means to me to know that my kids are always being taken care of by the one person that knows how to do it best. I can go to school every day and know that they are being cared for without worrying one iota about their well being. That sense of security makes me happy beyond words.
When I was asked that question by the student today, it somehow made me really think about Holly and all she does, and I felt as though I should share it. Holly and I have had our rough times like every marriage does, but the struggles we've been through have made our relationship stronger. She IS misunderstood. She IS underappreaciated. But I can assure you that no one living in this house feel that way about her. Cheyenne idolizes her and looks up to her more than anyone. Kennedy understands how much Holly does for her and even though her young body is often blasted by sickness and medication, she always feels safe and happy with Holly. And Nolan...well...if you want to see a little boy light up like a Christmas tree, just have Holly walk up to him and say hello. That leaves me:) As much as I tease her about nagging me too much and taking out all of her frustrations on me, every time I see her I know how lucky I am to have such a caring and loving wife and mother to be in my life.
Just so you know, Holly will hate me for writing this. She isn't in to "mushy" stuff or taking credit for something that she feels like is her motherly responsibility. Also, I can assure you that I've only scratched the surface of what she does for us, but I feel better getting it off my chest.
I love you Mrs. Felax.....
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Urban Hunting with Storm
Any time someone moves into a new house, there are all sorts of things you need to worry about. I don't need to list them on here, but I know one big worry is always who your neighbors will be. Back in the summer of 2001, after a year of living in the hell hole apartment in Chesterfield, the Felax 3 (4 was on the way) moved into a quaint little home on the far north end of Port Huron. The house was a huge improvement from the apartment, and we finally had a place to call our own. Three bedroom, two bathroom, and a huge eat-in kitchen that pretty much sold Holly on the place right away. There was a nice deck in the back of the house that overlooked a HUGE backyard. Although the lot we lived on was fairly narrow, it was nearly 400 feet long, which in a city like Port Huron is HUGE.
Shortly after moving in, it was time to meet the neighbors. On the south side of our house was an elderly couple that only lived there a few years. They were good folks, but they made Hugh Hefner look young. My fondest memory of the old man (still have no idea what his name is...I knew it at one time but no longer know) came one day when we were getting ready to head up north to visit family. I was out on the back porch for some reason or another, and the old man was working on his riding lawn mower. I honestly think the lawn mower was older than he was. He had been working on it for a while, and then all I keep hearing was things to the effect of, "God damn, sumbitchin piece of shit!" and "Ah, this @#$#ing mother f$!$er...ain't worth a goddamn dime." I could sense his frustration level rising higher and higher, and even though it was entertaining as hell to listen to him, I decided to lend a hand. I'm not a gear head by any stretch, but I thought maybe I could help him out a bit and ease his tension. Well...we worked on that damn old piece of crap for about two hours as Holly and the kids were waiting to leave, but I'll be darned if we didn't get it working. He was incredibly thankful to me and it felt good to help out. He ended up passing away some time later that year and when his family came to move his wife out of the house and into an assisted living home, I spoke briefly with his son outside. I told him the story of when I helped his dad fix that old mower, so as a good will gesture, he told me I could have it. I was flattered, but I really didn't think it even worked any more. Later that day I fired it up, and I'll be darned if I didn't use that mower for almost two years before it finally quit on me. I guess sometimes good deeds pay off:)
To the north of our house was a big, aging, white house with a rickety old detatched garage that never seemed to ever be open. The man that lived there came over one day and introduced himself to me and my family. He was an older gentleman with gray hair and a strong build for an old guy, and I remember him shaking my hand and saying, "Storm. Storm Bradt." All I could think was that was one kick ass name, and as it turned out, he was one kick ass neighbor. He was divorced and had two adult sons that came around once in a while, but he was the definition of everything you'd want a neighbor to be. Cheyenne was still very young and she looked up to Storm as sort of a grandpa, and he treated as such. Shortly after meeting Storm, I would look outside and see Cheyenne following him around his yard like a shadow. Storm loved plants and flowers, and spent hours on end grooming the different types of foliage he had growing around his lawn. I would holler to Cheyenne and tell her to leave poor Storm alone, but he had none of it. "She's fine..she's just helping me out." In addition, he ALWAYS bought Christmas presents for her (and for Kennedy after she was born). He would buy them little trinkets or tree ornaments, and he never missed a Christmas. He was the perfect neighbor.
Then in the summer of 2006, we both started noticing that something was digging up holes around my shed. (Storm was VERY observant, even when it came to our house. He was good to have around when we went on vacations up north.) I thought at first that it was a gopher or something like that, but the holes seemed to be really big and they were causing some damage to the side of my shed. So one night I left some food out in the middle of our yard, just beyond the back porch, just to see if I could see what was back there. Sure enough, not long after the sun went down, I flipped the light on and saw what I was hoping I wouldn't see...a damn skunk! Wait...no....make that about 4 or 5 of them. This isn't good.
The next day, I spoke with Storm and told him what I saw, so we came up with a plan. It was a simple plan, but it ended up evolving into one of the most ridiculous and humorous things I've ever been involved with. Storm loved to shoot his BB guns out the back window of his house at pests that were bothering him, but I don't think he ever really hit anything. He told me that he had a pellet gun in the house as well and that I could use it to peg off the skunks if I wanted to, but he asked that I give him a call and let him in on the action. Obviously, it was an offer I couldn't refuse. Later that night, I set out some "bait" and waited for the skunks to show up. Just like clockwork, they appeared and started munching away on the goodies I left out for them (basic household scraps covered in bacon grease was a favorite). I called Storm and he told me to wait for him.
At this point, it's important to know how our houses were arranged. Our master bedroom was located in the northeast corner of the house, which meant we had one window that faced the back yard and one window that faced Storm's house. Storm's back door (the door he used 99% of the time) was on the south side of his house, so our bedroom window faced directly at his back door. Since the lots were so narrow, his back door was probably only about 20-30 feet from out window, which made our hunting adventures much more possible. Storm also had a large boat in his driveway and we had a small playhouse in the back as well, which provided a cover for him to come out of his door and not be seen by the prey. Yeah, I say "prey" like we were hunting wild beasts.
I waited for Storm on this first night to get outside and set up his rifle (aka Red Rider BB Gun) and once he was in position, I carefully opened up my back window and set my own assault rifle (aka pellet gun) on the window sill and took aim. Storm was only a few feet away at the time so I counted to three and we opened fire. And by "opened fire", I guess I mean we technically shot one time since Storm could only get off one shot every few seconds and it took me about 30 seconds to get off my next shot since I had to load and pump that damn thing like 10 times. The good news is that we ended up killing one of the skunks that night. The bad news was that they sprayed the shit out of my house and there were still like 3 or 4 other skunks there that we still needed to get. The best part of the kill in hindsight was our reaction. We seriously celebrated like we were soldiers that just survived a tour in the jungles of Vietnam.
The next day, I walked outside and it smelled like I stepped into the ass of a skunk. The stench was overwhelming, but I was still happy nonetheless. I got a shovel from the shed and carefully lifted the skunk onto it and walked it all the way to the back of my yard where I dug a hole under a large tree and buried kill number one. Fortunately, the next couple nights were successful as well and I got to bury skunks number two and three under the tree as well. I was convinced that I was the one hitting the skunks and that Storm kept missing, so that is why I kept burying them. We had a deal that whoever got the kill shot had to bury the kill...and I was fine with burying them.
But then we ran into a bit of a problem. Most of the skunks that we had killed up to this point were young ones that were fairly small and easy to kill. The problem was that the mama skunk was still alive and she was a total pain in the ass. We tried unsuccessfully for several nights to kill this damn thing and she just wouldn't die. I knew that I had hit her at least once, but apparantly she wasn't going to go down without a fight. As soon as we would start shooting, she would run away (most of the time to under my damn shed that she was tearing to shreds). So I needed to come up with a plan...and I did. It was quite possible the dumbest plan on the face of the planet and the likelihood of it working in my mind was probably about 5% if I were to highball it.
So here was the plan. My father-in-law had given me a bunch of long metal stakes a few years prior to put up a fence around the garden in the back yard, so I took one and pounded it into the ground right by where the bait was. After pounding it in, it still stuck out of the ground about three feet or so. Then I took a section of chicken wire that was about 5 or 6 feet long and I weaved it onto the metal pole on one end of the section of wire. Since the chicken wire was in a roll, it had a natural curve to it, which worked perfectly for my "plan". So the stake was stuck in the ground with a section of chicken wire attached to it and it looked like the letter "C". The opening of the "C" shape was facing toward the house. Now came the hard part...and this took me forever to get right. I took several short pieces of rope and tied them at different heights to the end of the chicken wire on the end opposite the metal post. (Bear with me...I know it sounds confusing). I think there were about 3 spots that I tied the chicken wire up. I then took each of the sections of rope that were tied to the chicken wire and looped them around the metal post and tied them together once they were totally looped around. So basically, if I were to pull on the ropes, it would pull the "C" shaped chicken wire closed and form a makeshift "trap". The problem was then figuring out how to make it possible to activate the trap without getting too close and scaring away the skunk. I had several short chunks of rope that I tied together to form one long rope, and I tied that to the spot where the other three ropes were tied together. It was long enough to reach my bedroom window, so now the trap was set...sort of.
There was no way this could work. I had a makeshift trap set up with an old re-bar post, some chicken wire, and a whole bunch of smaller sections of rope tied together. What could go wrong, right? I tested the trap and it actually seemed to work, but I still had doubts that this would actually help us kill the skunk. So then the time came...it was getting dark and Storm and I were getting pumped. Just like clockwork, mama skunk showed up shortly after dark and started eating the delicious morsels that I had set out inside the "C" trap. I called Storm and he got into position. The rope was dangling inside my bedroom (I closed it in the window earlier) so I grabbed hold of it and slowly opened the window. I looked at Storm and he gave me the go ahead so I pulled that sucker as fast as I could...and I'll be damned if it didn't work! I trapped the skunk and Storm opened fire. I could tell that he was hitting the skunk but I couldn't help out because I was holding the rope for dear life. He must have shot 25 BB's until he was convinced that it was dead and we must have woken the neighbors with our celebrations.
The next morning I told Storm that he had to bury the skunk, and he absolutely refused. I told him, "Bullshit Storm, rules are rules...YOU had the kill shot, so YOU have to bury it!" He reluctantly agreed and I saw him take the skunk out to "the tree" to bury it. At this point, I thought our hunting was over, but man was I wrong.
That night I set out some "bait" just to make sure that we got all the critters that were roaming our neighborhood and wreaking havoc. Nothing. I checked every 10 or 15 minutes but still nothing. By this time, I had already informed Holly that she would have to be involved in holding the trap shut so that I could help Storm shoot the skunk, but nothing was showing up. So right before I get ready to go to bed (it must have been 11 or 11:30), I take one more look out the back window and I couldn't believe what I saw. The skunks were indeed dead, but in its place was a damn opossom! Not even thinking about how late it was, I picked up the phone and dialed Storm. As I was dialing, I told Holly to get her ass into the bedroom...it was go time!
I could tell that I woke Storm because he was groggy as hell, but I knew that if I got a kill without telling him, he would be pissed. Holly and I are down in the bedroom and waiting for Storm to come out, and I'll be damned if he doesn't come out and hide behind his boat, decked out in nothing more than a white t-shirt and some whitey tighties. Holly and I were laughing our asses off. He was so groggy and tired that he forgot to put pants on, but heaven knows he remembered his BB Gun. His hair was messy and he wasn't wearing his glasses, but he set his sights on the opossom and gave me the sign that he was ready. I pulled the rope tight and handed it to Holly, who was propping herself against the wall and pulling as tight as she could so that we could fire away.
Let's picture this for a second. A 60 year old man in his underwear with a BB Gun, Holly holding the rope of a makeshift trap, and me shooting a pellet gun once every 30 seconds or so and pumping it so fast that more often than not my arms were shaking by the 7th pump. We killed the opossom that night, but I'm sure that he was laughing his ass off. The next morning, I had the duty of burying the possom. I took him out to the cemetary tree and when I got there, I noticed something odd. First of all, there was a stench of a dead animal, and when I looked closer, I could see a bloated, dead skunk sticking out of the ground. It turns out that "burying" the animal had a different definition to me than to Storm. When it was his job to bury the last skunk, he literally dug a hole about 8 or 10 inches deep, laid the skunk in it, and then covered it with some dirt, leaves, and twigs...as though late night scavengers wouldn't catch on. I dug down about 2 feet or so and buried both the skunk and the opossom together. I gave Storm a bunch of crap about his pathetic burying job, but he was oblivious. From that point forward, I did the burying:)
And this continued...for weeks and weeks. Every single night I would set out dinner leftovers and we would wait for the pests to come. More often than not, we got nothing. The animals were wising up and weren't showing up until after we went to bed, but that didn't stop us from trying. I remember calling Storm at all hours of the night...sometimes as late as 2 or 3 AM...if I got up to go to the bathroom and saw something in our trap. We eventually bought a pair of spotlights to use as well since our porch light wasn't quite bright enough. Holly eventually got pretty good at pulling the rope and holding it tight while at the same time shining a spotlight on the trap. One night we even caught a raccoon in the trap. He just stood there for a second like, "Ok, what the heck is going on here", but as soon as we opened fire, he climbed his ass out of that trap just as fast as we could lock him in there. The coon was the only one to escape the trap, and we just accepted that we would probably never get him.
When it was all said and done, to my best estimation I would say that we killed between 4 and 5 skunks and about the same amount of opossoms. We had other opportunities, but lets face it...we were not exactly great white hunters.
As it turned out, that summer would be our only opportunity to hunt the neighborhood critters. Storm got sick with cancer some time in 2007 and was not around or as active as he usually was. We ended up moving into our current house in the Spring of 2008, and leaving Storm as a neighbor was one of the hardest parts about moving. We said our goodbyes and that was that. He was much skinnier and weaker than he had ever been, but he seemed to be in good spirits. Shortly after we moved, we returned to the house for some reason or another, and people that lived there said that someone came looking for us the day before. They described the guy as a "goth-looking" dude and he specifically asked for me, but I had no idea who it was. A day or two later, I was looking through the Times Herald (local newspaper) and I just happened to open up to the obituaries and I was shocked to see the name "Storm V.Z. Bradt". The goth looking guy that was looking for me was Storm's son, there to tell me that Storm had passed away.
We attended his funeral and I cried harder than I expected I would. I thought about all the nice things he did for us and for the girls, but more than anything...I thought about that Summer of 2006. That summer where two idiots (three if you count Holly) with BB and pellet guns had the time of their lives protecting the neighborhood from pests of all kinds. He was a great guy, but most of all he was a great neighbor...and he is missed.
Until next time...
Shortly after moving in, it was time to meet the neighbors. On the south side of our house was an elderly couple that only lived there a few years. They were good folks, but they made Hugh Hefner look young. My fondest memory of the old man (still have no idea what his name is...I knew it at one time but no longer know) came one day when we were getting ready to head up north to visit family. I was out on the back porch for some reason or another, and the old man was working on his riding lawn mower. I honestly think the lawn mower was older than he was. He had been working on it for a while, and then all I keep hearing was things to the effect of, "God damn, sumbitchin piece of shit!" and "Ah, this @#$#ing mother f$!$er...ain't worth a goddamn dime." I could sense his frustration level rising higher and higher, and even though it was entertaining as hell to listen to him, I decided to lend a hand. I'm not a gear head by any stretch, but I thought maybe I could help him out a bit and ease his tension. Well...we worked on that damn old piece of crap for about two hours as Holly and the kids were waiting to leave, but I'll be darned if we didn't get it working. He was incredibly thankful to me and it felt good to help out. He ended up passing away some time later that year and when his family came to move his wife out of the house and into an assisted living home, I spoke briefly with his son outside. I told him the story of when I helped his dad fix that old mower, so as a good will gesture, he told me I could have it. I was flattered, but I really didn't think it even worked any more. Later that day I fired it up, and I'll be darned if I didn't use that mower for almost two years before it finally quit on me. I guess sometimes good deeds pay off:)
To the north of our house was a big, aging, white house with a rickety old detatched garage that never seemed to ever be open. The man that lived there came over one day and introduced himself to me and my family. He was an older gentleman with gray hair and a strong build for an old guy, and I remember him shaking my hand and saying, "Storm. Storm Bradt." All I could think was that was one kick ass name, and as it turned out, he was one kick ass neighbor. He was divorced and had two adult sons that came around once in a while, but he was the definition of everything you'd want a neighbor to be. Cheyenne was still very young and she looked up to Storm as sort of a grandpa, and he treated as such. Shortly after meeting Storm, I would look outside and see Cheyenne following him around his yard like a shadow. Storm loved plants and flowers, and spent hours on end grooming the different types of foliage he had growing around his lawn. I would holler to Cheyenne and tell her to leave poor Storm alone, but he had none of it. "She's fine..she's just helping me out." In addition, he ALWAYS bought Christmas presents for her (and for Kennedy after she was born). He would buy them little trinkets or tree ornaments, and he never missed a Christmas. He was the perfect neighbor.
Then in the summer of 2006, we both started noticing that something was digging up holes around my shed. (Storm was VERY observant, even when it came to our house. He was good to have around when we went on vacations up north.) I thought at first that it was a gopher or something like that, but the holes seemed to be really big and they were causing some damage to the side of my shed. So one night I left some food out in the middle of our yard, just beyond the back porch, just to see if I could see what was back there. Sure enough, not long after the sun went down, I flipped the light on and saw what I was hoping I wouldn't see...a damn skunk! Wait...no....make that about 4 or 5 of them. This isn't good.
The next day, I spoke with Storm and told him what I saw, so we came up with a plan. It was a simple plan, but it ended up evolving into one of the most ridiculous and humorous things I've ever been involved with. Storm loved to shoot his BB guns out the back window of his house at pests that were bothering him, but I don't think he ever really hit anything. He told me that he had a pellet gun in the house as well and that I could use it to peg off the skunks if I wanted to, but he asked that I give him a call and let him in on the action. Obviously, it was an offer I couldn't refuse. Later that night, I set out some "bait" and waited for the skunks to show up. Just like clockwork, they appeared and started munching away on the goodies I left out for them (basic household scraps covered in bacon grease was a favorite). I called Storm and he told me to wait for him.
At this point, it's important to know how our houses were arranged. Our master bedroom was located in the northeast corner of the house, which meant we had one window that faced the back yard and one window that faced Storm's house. Storm's back door (the door he used 99% of the time) was on the south side of his house, so our bedroom window faced directly at his back door. Since the lots were so narrow, his back door was probably only about 20-30 feet from out window, which made our hunting adventures much more possible. Storm also had a large boat in his driveway and we had a small playhouse in the back as well, which provided a cover for him to come out of his door and not be seen by the prey. Yeah, I say "prey" like we were hunting wild beasts.
I waited for Storm on this first night to get outside and set up his rifle (aka Red Rider BB Gun) and once he was in position, I carefully opened up my back window and set my own assault rifle (aka pellet gun) on the window sill and took aim. Storm was only a few feet away at the time so I counted to three and we opened fire. And by "opened fire", I guess I mean we technically shot one time since Storm could only get off one shot every few seconds and it took me about 30 seconds to get off my next shot since I had to load and pump that damn thing like 10 times. The good news is that we ended up killing one of the skunks that night. The bad news was that they sprayed the shit out of my house and there were still like 3 or 4 other skunks there that we still needed to get. The best part of the kill in hindsight was our reaction. We seriously celebrated like we were soldiers that just survived a tour in the jungles of Vietnam.
The next day, I walked outside and it smelled like I stepped into the ass of a skunk. The stench was overwhelming, but I was still happy nonetheless. I got a shovel from the shed and carefully lifted the skunk onto it and walked it all the way to the back of my yard where I dug a hole under a large tree and buried kill number one. Fortunately, the next couple nights were successful as well and I got to bury skunks number two and three under the tree as well. I was convinced that I was the one hitting the skunks and that Storm kept missing, so that is why I kept burying them. We had a deal that whoever got the kill shot had to bury the kill...and I was fine with burying them.
But then we ran into a bit of a problem. Most of the skunks that we had killed up to this point were young ones that were fairly small and easy to kill. The problem was that the mama skunk was still alive and she was a total pain in the ass. We tried unsuccessfully for several nights to kill this damn thing and she just wouldn't die. I knew that I had hit her at least once, but apparantly she wasn't going to go down without a fight. As soon as we would start shooting, she would run away (most of the time to under my damn shed that she was tearing to shreds). So I needed to come up with a plan...and I did. It was quite possible the dumbest plan on the face of the planet and the likelihood of it working in my mind was probably about 5% if I were to highball it.
So here was the plan. My father-in-law had given me a bunch of long metal stakes a few years prior to put up a fence around the garden in the back yard, so I took one and pounded it into the ground right by where the bait was. After pounding it in, it still stuck out of the ground about three feet or so. Then I took a section of chicken wire that was about 5 or 6 feet long and I weaved it onto the metal pole on one end of the section of wire. Since the chicken wire was in a roll, it had a natural curve to it, which worked perfectly for my "plan". So the stake was stuck in the ground with a section of chicken wire attached to it and it looked like the letter "C". The opening of the "C" shape was facing toward the house. Now came the hard part...and this took me forever to get right. I took several short pieces of rope and tied them at different heights to the end of the chicken wire on the end opposite the metal post. (Bear with me...I know it sounds confusing). I think there were about 3 spots that I tied the chicken wire up. I then took each of the sections of rope that were tied to the chicken wire and looped them around the metal post and tied them together once they were totally looped around. So basically, if I were to pull on the ropes, it would pull the "C" shaped chicken wire closed and form a makeshift "trap". The problem was then figuring out how to make it possible to activate the trap without getting too close and scaring away the skunk. I had several short chunks of rope that I tied together to form one long rope, and I tied that to the spot where the other three ropes were tied together. It was long enough to reach my bedroom window, so now the trap was set...sort of.
There was no way this could work. I had a makeshift trap set up with an old re-bar post, some chicken wire, and a whole bunch of smaller sections of rope tied together. What could go wrong, right? I tested the trap and it actually seemed to work, but I still had doubts that this would actually help us kill the skunk. So then the time came...it was getting dark and Storm and I were getting pumped. Just like clockwork, mama skunk showed up shortly after dark and started eating the delicious morsels that I had set out inside the "C" trap. I called Storm and he got into position. The rope was dangling inside my bedroom (I closed it in the window earlier) so I grabbed hold of it and slowly opened the window. I looked at Storm and he gave me the go ahead so I pulled that sucker as fast as I could...and I'll be damned if it didn't work! I trapped the skunk and Storm opened fire. I could tell that he was hitting the skunk but I couldn't help out because I was holding the rope for dear life. He must have shot 25 BB's until he was convinced that it was dead and we must have woken the neighbors with our celebrations.
The next morning I told Storm that he had to bury the skunk, and he absolutely refused. I told him, "Bullshit Storm, rules are rules...YOU had the kill shot, so YOU have to bury it!" He reluctantly agreed and I saw him take the skunk out to "the tree" to bury it. At this point, I thought our hunting was over, but man was I wrong.
That night I set out some "bait" just to make sure that we got all the critters that were roaming our neighborhood and wreaking havoc. Nothing. I checked every 10 or 15 minutes but still nothing. By this time, I had already informed Holly that she would have to be involved in holding the trap shut so that I could help Storm shoot the skunk, but nothing was showing up. So right before I get ready to go to bed (it must have been 11 or 11:30), I take one more look out the back window and I couldn't believe what I saw. The skunks were indeed dead, but in its place was a damn opossom! Not even thinking about how late it was, I picked up the phone and dialed Storm. As I was dialing, I told Holly to get her ass into the bedroom...it was go time!
I could tell that I woke Storm because he was groggy as hell, but I knew that if I got a kill without telling him, he would be pissed. Holly and I are down in the bedroom and waiting for Storm to come out, and I'll be damned if he doesn't come out and hide behind his boat, decked out in nothing more than a white t-shirt and some whitey tighties. Holly and I were laughing our asses off. He was so groggy and tired that he forgot to put pants on, but heaven knows he remembered his BB Gun. His hair was messy and he wasn't wearing his glasses, but he set his sights on the opossom and gave me the sign that he was ready. I pulled the rope tight and handed it to Holly, who was propping herself against the wall and pulling as tight as she could so that we could fire away.
Let's picture this for a second. A 60 year old man in his underwear with a BB Gun, Holly holding the rope of a makeshift trap, and me shooting a pellet gun once every 30 seconds or so and pumping it so fast that more often than not my arms were shaking by the 7th pump. We killed the opossom that night, but I'm sure that he was laughing his ass off. The next morning, I had the duty of burying the possom. I took him out to the cemetary tree and when I got there, I noticed something odd. First of all, there was a stench of a dead animal, and when I looked closer, I could see a bloated, dead skunk sticking out of the ground. It turns out that "burying" the animal had a different definition to me than to Storm. When it was his job to bury the last skunk, he literally dug a hole about 8 or 10 inches deep, laid the skunk in it, and then covered it with some dirt, leaves, and twigs...as though late night scavengers wouldn't catch on. I dug down about 2 feet or so and buried both the skunk and the opossom together. I gave Storm a bunch of crap about his pathetic burying job, but he was oblivious. From that point forward, I did the burying:)
And this continued...for weeks and weeks. Every single night I would set out dinner leftovers and we would wait for the pests to come. More often than not, we got nothing. The animals were wising up and weren't showing up until after we went to bed, but that didn't stop us from trying. I remember calling Storm at all hours of the night...sometimes as late as 2 or 3 AM...if I got up to go to the bathroom and saw something in our trap. We eventually bought a pair of spotlights to use as well since our porch light wasn't quite bright enough. Holly eventually got pretty good at pulling the rope and holding it tight while at the same time shining a spotlight on the trap. One night we even caught a raccoon in the trap. He just stood there for a second like, "Ok, what the heck is going on here", but as soon as we opened fire, he climbed his ass out of that trap just as fast as we could lock him in there. The coon was the only one to escape the trap, and we just accepted that we would probably never get him.
When it was all said and done, to my best estimation I would say that we killed between 4 and 5 skunks and about the same amount of opossoms. We had other opportunities, but lets face it...we were not exactly great white hunters.
As it turned out, that summer would be our only opportunity to hunt the neighborhood critters. Storm got sick with cancer some time in 2007 and was not around or as active as he usually was. We ended up moving into our current house in the Spring of 2008, and leaving Storm as a neighbor was one of the hardest parts about moving. We said our goodbyes and that was that. He was much skinnier and weaker than he had ever been, but he seemed to be in good spirits. Shortly after we moved, we returned to the house for some reason or another, and people that lived there said that someone came looking for us the day before. They described the guy as a "goth-looking" dude and he specifically asked for me, but I had no idea who it was. A day or two later, I was looking through the Times Herald (local newspaper) and I just happened to open up to the obituaries and I was shocked to see the name "Storm V.Z. Bradt". The goth looking guy that was looking for me was Storm's son, there to tell me that Storm had passed away.
We attended his funeral and I cried harder than I expected I would. I thought about all the nice things he did for us and for the girls, but more than anything...I thought about that Summer of 2006. That summer where two idiots (three if you count Holly) with BB and pellet guns had the time of their lives protecting the neighborhood from pests of all kinds. He was a great guy, but most of all he was a great neighbor...and he is missed.
Until next time...
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Sam
I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was in December of 2006 and I was in the auxiliary gym at Marine City High School, coaching my second year of Varsity Volleyball for the Mariners. Holly was also there since she was the Freshman Volleyball coach and they were having practice in the main gym. Kennedy was 4 years old at the time and Cheyenne was 8, and they were also running around somewhere like they did every day. My phone rang and the call was from my sister. It seemed very odd to me that she'd be calling me at that time, so I answered. I knew right away something was terribly wrong. She was bawling and had a hard time even getting the words out. What I did manage to hear was something to the effect of, "Dad...has cancer...mesothelioma...it's bad, it's one of the worst types to have...it's so bad." When I finally put it all together, I realized that I'd heard something that I never wanted to hear again...Dad had cancer.
For those of you from Rogers City, the name Sam Felax is likely one that you've heard and the man Sam Felax is likely one that you knew. He was everything that a man should be, and he was even better as a dad. Dad proudly served a tour in Vietnam shortly after high school, then returned home and got a job working at Calcite. He married my mom in February of 1969 and they started to raise a family in the Polish Town "district" of Rogers City. Our house was nestled on a dead-end street in the southeast corner of town (I learned later that the "fancy" name for a dead end street was a "cul-de-sac", but trust me...this was a dead end street). Their first bundle of joy was born in July of 1970...my sister Wendy. My brother Dennis came along four years later in April of 1974, and then the highlight of their lives happened on the first day of June, 1977. Yup, that was the day I was born. (OK, it probably wasn't the highlight, but I like to think it was.)
Growing up on Lake Street was every kids dream. Not only was it a dead end road, but there was even a little creek that flowed down by the "turn-around" as we called it, and enough bike trails to make any young man giddy. There were kids to play with, rocks to throw, and the people were as friendly as they came. We were within shouting distance of the ice rink in the winter, and a very short bike ride away from the Little League fields in the summer. Mom and Dad Felax did it right, that is for sure.
My dad was the largest influence on my life from day one. He did everything that you expect a good dad to do for his son and then some. The thing that I remember most is the fact that he is the one that got me started into baseball. Those of you that know me well (and maybe not even that well) know that baseball is my passion in life right behind my wife and my kids. Actually, I might even put it slightly above my wife, depending on the day. My dad constantly worked shifts at "The Plant", but he somehow managed to coach all of his kids in Little League at some point or another. In hindsight, I can remember him switching shifts to midnights (not a favorite shift of most people) so that he was able to attend our games and practices. Many days he would come directly from the plant to the field, decked out in his work boots and all. From an early age, he also instilled the concept of hard work and solid values in all of the kids. I still remember many of his "sayings" that I still use today with my own kids. "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right" is one that I use the most:)
In addition to being a huge influence on the lives of his kids, he was also one of the greatest grandpas on the face of the planet. He had a special bond with his first grandson, Travis, right from day one. Travis was his little buddy and never left his side. He would take him everywhere, but they spent most of their time out at the camp. Then along came the rest of his grandkids, and he treated each and every one of them like they were as special as they were. Two of his grandchildren technically were married into the family (Noelle and Cheyenne), and he treated them with the same love and compassion that he did to every other one. When Kennedy was diagnosed with CF, it hit my dad pretty hard, and for some reason he developed a very special bond with her as well. I can still remember when he was sick with the cancer, he would take his pills at the same time as Kennedy just to go that extra mile to make a connection with her. The kids just loved their papa, and rightfully so.
Several years prior to that fateful call from my sister, Dad had surgery for prostate cancer and he kicked the shit out of it. Shortly after that, we almost lost him in a near-tragic tractor accident that would have killed a lesser man. But he survived and lived to harass the hell out of us for several more years. So when I received this call, part of me was totally devastated, but another part didn't believe this cancer would be able to kill him. After all...he WAS Superman.
I called home later that evening and my mom answered the phone. She said that dad was too upset and didn't want to talk to anyone. I said something to the effect of, "Bullshit, just put him on the phone", so she did. I just talked to him like it was any other day, but I could tell he was upset. He was more upset than I ever remember him being, so for once in my life I felt it was my responsibility to help him through this hard time rather than the other way around. We traveled north shortly after that for Christmas and had a great time. Dad was getting weak and losing a lot of weight, but he was still dad.
I had no idea what we would do at this point, but my sister took the bull by the horns and started making calls and writing letters. She ended up getting Dad in for an appointment with a world-reknowned doctor in the Boston area by the name of Dr. Sugarbaker. When it came to mesothelioma, this guy was the one you wanted to see. It was his specialty and even though he was a VERY busy man, whatever my sister had to say to him must have struck a chord, because he made room for Dad. For those of you that don't know, Mesothelioma is a cancer that is caused by asbestos exposure...I'm sure you've seen those damn commercials. After his visit with Sugarbaker, it was determined that Dad would go out to Boston within a month or two and have a rather drastic surgery to remove one of his lungs. The cancer had grown quite large and in Sugarbaker's opinion, the only chance of surviving this was to remove the lung entirely and hope for the best.
The day before we flew out to Boston was simple insanity. As luck would have it, Kennedy was getting admitted into Mott Children's Hospital that day for her "tune-up" as we like to call them, and she would be there for at least a few days. Holly was already in Ann Arbor for an appointment and Kennedy getting admitted was not expected, so the chaos began. I was in school and had volleyball practice immediately afterward, but I had a TON of work to do after that. I went from practice to our home in Port Huron to pack not only my bags for Boston, but I also had to pack clothes and supplies for Holly and Kennedy in the hospital. When I was done with that, I had to drive back to Marine City to meet with a guy that was going to take over my volleyball team while I was away. The meeting took a couple hours and I remember leaving his house some time around 11 or 11:30. From there I drove to Ann Arbor to drop of the supplies for Holly and Kennedy. I got pulled over on the way for speeding, but when I told the officer what was going on, he just wished me luck and sent me on my way. I left Ann Arbor around 2 or 3 AM and headed back to Metro Airport to catch our flight. So in one day, I went from Port Huron to Marine City to Port Huron to Marine City to Ann Arbor to Metro Airport. Needless to say, when we arrived in Boston I was ready to sleep!
Although we were in Boston for all the wrong reasons, we made the most of it. We learned how to use the subway and went sightseeing in downtown Boston. The highlight of the trip for me was when we went to Fenway Park and took a tour around the stadium. Seeing the "Green Monster" in real life was just awesome for me.
The day of the surgery came and we were all on pins and needles. Dad was cracking jokes right until they took him back for the surgery, and mind you this is no minor surgery. We waited and waited, just hoping for the best. A couple hours later, we got a page and were told to meet in the consutation room with Dr. Sugarbaker. We were in the room waiting for him and for some reason I had a bad feeling about what we were about to hear, although I didn't dare share those feelings with anyone else. Unfortunately, it took only one sentence out of the doctors mouth for me to realize that my feelings were true. Dr. Sugarbaker walked into the room, and while I can't remember the exact words, I believe the first thing he said was something like, "We couldn't get it out." What happened was that the tumor had grown and had actually connected to the wall of his heart. He said they could have tried to cut it away, but there would be a good chance that he'd bleed out on the table.
When we first got a chance to see Dad after the surgery, it was actually very humorous. He was coming off of some heavy anesthetics and he was loopy as hell. When my mom walked into the room, the nurse said to my dad, "Do you recognize her?". Dad groggily looked at mom and with a straight face, he told both the nurse and my mom that he'd never seen her before in his life. The nurse looked concerned and my mom looked scared as shit, then dad cracked the tiniest of grins and we knew he was back to normal (actually, I think he really pissed the nurse off, but it was worth it). Then he started talking about Dr. Sugarbaker's boat. We were asking him what the hell he was talking about, and he kept saying that Dr. Sugarbaker invited him onto his yacht and he was supposed to go back on it. We thought he was messing with us again, but it turned out that he was dead serious. He later told us that while he was under the anesthesia, he had the most vivid dream of his life about being on the boat. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced to this day that even after he recoved and came home, a part of him still believed it really happened.
So back to Rogers City he went, and from that point forward, things got significantly worse...and they got that way fast. Since Mom was around him and tending to him every day, she didn't see the decline in his condition, but I did. I made it up north as much as I could and as time went on, it was appearing more and more apparent that he wasn't going to be able to beat this. I can remember one visit in particular where I had a chance to talk to Dad one on one in their living room with no one else there. He was very emotional and said he was just scared of leaving us kids alone and missing his grandkids. That was very hard to hear, but I tried my best to put his mind at ease. I can remember telling him with tears in my eyes that he had nothing to worry about. He raised all of his kids the right way and it was BECAUSE of him and mom that he didn't have to worry. I told him that I had grown into the man I was today because of his guidance, and I told him I loved him for it. He then broke down (seeing your dad cry is NOT an easy thing) and said some things that stuck with me to this day...some things that I learned valuable lessons from. I remember him saying, "I'm lucky. I'm just so lucky. I'm 61 years old and I've lived a good life." He broke down even more when he said, "I knew guys in the military that never saw their 20th birthday. They never got a chance to get married or ever have kids. Some of them had kids and never had a chance to meet them. I'm lucky to have lived the life I've lived." I bawled right along with him and gave him the most meaningful and heart felt hug that I've ever given anyone. He was dying, yet he was telling me how lucky he was...and I remembered that lesson.
Early in July things got much worse. I noticed that he was getting VERY ill and he was very emotional every time we visited. I think he knew what was coming, but he battled to the very end. I had made a plan to come up in a couple of weeks, but then I got a call from mom around the 17th or 18th of July telling me that Dad's condition was getting pretty bad. I changed my plans and told her I was coming up on Friday of that week, which was the 20th of July. But then in the early hours of the morning on Thursday, July 19th, the phone woke me up...and I knew what I was going to hear. Mom was on the other end of the line and she was much calmer than I had expected. She simply said that Hospice was at the house and they said he only had a couple hours left. I called Dennis and we made a plan to meet at his house and then drive up together. It was one of the longest trips of our lives. We talked a lot, and it was mostly about Dad. We kept wondering if we were going to be too late to say goodbye because it sounded like we probably wouldn't make it. The drive from Dennis's house is about 4 hours, so the chance of him making it until we got there was likely slim.
While we drove up, dad eventually lost conciousness but was still alive. Mom just kept telling him that the boys were on the way. He couldn't answer, but he held on. He fought. He battled. When Dennis and I pulled into the driveway of Dad and Mom's house, there were vehicles everywhere and our Aunt Connie met us as we got out of the truck. "You guys better hurry, he doesn't have long." We walked into the house and walked immediately to the front room where Dad was laying in his hospital bed, and he looked nothing like the man I remember making me the man I am today. There were a lot of people at the house, but in the room with Dad I only remember Mom, Wendy, Russ (Wendy's husband), and Dad. It was very quiet in the room and the ventilator could be heard every so often as Dad took shallow breaths. We walked up to him and surrounded him on the bed. We all told him how much we loved him and how much he meant to us. We told him that he did his job and did it well, and it was time for him to go. "Just let go, Dad...we'll be ok." And within 15 minutes of Dennis and I walking into the room, Dad took his final breath. That stubborn old sucker held on for over 5 hours, but once he knew his boys had shown up and the family was complete...he let go.
That day the world lost a good man. The city of Rogers City lost a valued public servant. A man that was the President of his Union at Calcite, the President of Little League, a City Council member, and a member of so many other committes that I couldn't possibly mention them all. My mom lost a husband and my siblings and I lost our dad. Even more imporantly, that day I lost my hero. I lost a man that taught me everything I know about how to be a good man and a good dad. But although a lot was lost that day, I also gained a new respect for life and for the role we all play in it. Even in death, he continued to teach me lessons...and for that, I am eternally grateful. My dad left a legacy that made me proud to be his son, and if I can be half the man that my dad was...I'll have one hell of a legacy of my own.
Until next time....
For those of you from Rogers City, the name Sam Felax is likely one that you've heard and the man Sam Felax is likely one that you knew. He was everything that a man should be, and he was even better as a dad. Dad proudly served a tour in Vietnam shortly after high school, then returned home and got a job working at Calcite. He married my mom in February of 1969 and they started to raise a family in the Polish Town "district" of Rogers City. Our house was nestled on a dead-end street in the southeast corner of town (I learned later that the "fancy" name for a dead end street was a "cul-de-sac", but trust me...this was a dead end street). Their first bundle of joy was born in July of 1970...my sister Wendy. My brother Dennis came along four years later in April of 1974, and then the highlight of their lives happened on the first day of June, 1977. Yup, that was the day I was born. (OK, it probably wasn't the highlight, but I like to think it was.)
Growing up on Lake Street was every kids dream. Not only was it a dead end road, but there was even a little creek that flowed down by the "turn-around" as we called it, and enough bike trails to make any young man giddy. There were kids to play with, rocks to throw, and the people were as friendly as they came. We were within shouting distance of the ice rink in the winter, and a very short bike ride away from the Little League fields in the summer. Mom and Dad Felax did it right, that is for sure.
My dad was the largest influence on my life from day one. He did everything that you expect a good dad to do for his son and then some. The thing that I remember most is the fact that he is the one that got me started into baseball. Those of you that know me well (and maybe not even that well) know that baseball is my passion in life right behind my wife and my kids. Actually, I might even put it slightly above my wife, depending on the day. My dad constantly worked shifts at "The Plant", but he somehow managed to coach all of his kids in Little League at some point or another. In hindsight, I can remember him switching shifts to midnights (not a favorite shift of most people) so that he was able to attend our games and practices. Many days he would come directly from the plant to the field, decked out in his work boots and all. From an early age, he also instilled the concept of hard work and solid values in all of the kids. I still remember many of his "sayings" that I still use today with my own kids. "Anything worth doing, is worth doing right" is one that I use the most:)
In addition to being a huge influence on the lives of his kids, he was also one of the greatest grandpas on the face of the planet. He had a special bond with his first grandson, Travis, right from day one. Travis was his little buddy and never left his side. He would take him everywhere, but they spent most of their time out at the camp. Then along came the rest of his grandkids, and he treated each and every one of them like they were as special as they were. Two of his grandchildren technically were married into the family (Noelle and Cheyenne), and he treated them with the same love and compassion that he did to every other one. When Kennedy was diagnosed with CF, it hit my dad pretty hard, and for some reason he developed a very special bond with her as well. I can still remember when he was sick with the cancer, he would take his pills at the same time as Kennedy just to go that extra mile to make a connection with her. The kids just loved their papa, and rightfully so.
Several years prior to that fateful call from my sister, Dad had surgery for prostate cancer and he kicked the shit out of it. Shortly after that, we almost lost him in a near-tragic tractor accident that would have killed a lesser man. But he survived and lived to harass the hell out of us for several more years. So when I received this call, part of me was totally devastated, but another part didn't believe this cancer would be able to kill him. After all...he WAS Superman.
I called home later that evening and my mom answered the phone. She said that dad was too upset and didn't want to talk to anyone. I said something to the effect of, "Bullshit, just put him on the phone", so she did. I just talked to him like it was any other day, but I could tell he was upset. He was more upset than I ever remember him being, so for once in my life I felt it was my responsibility to help him through this hard time rather than the other way around. We traveled north shortly after that for Christmas and had a great time. Dad was getting weak and losing a lot of weight, but he was still dad.
I had no idea what we would do at this point, but my sister took the bull by the horns and started making calls and writing letters. She ended up getting Dad in for an appointment with a world-reknowned doctor in the Boston area by the name of Dr. Sugarbaker. When it came to mesothelioma, this guy was the one you wanted to see. It was his specialty and even though he was a VERY busy man, whatever my sister had to say to him must have struck a chord, because he made room for Dad. For those of you that don't know, Mesothelioma is a cancer that is caused by asbestos exposure...I'm sure you've seen those damn commercials. After his visit with Sugarbaker, it was determined that Dad would go out to Boston within a month or two and have a rather drastic surgery to remove one of his lungs. The cancer had grown quite large and in Sugarbaker's opinion, the only chance of surviving this was to remove the lung entirely and hope for the best.
The day before we flew out to Boston was simple insanity. As luck would have it, Kennedy was getting admitted into Mott Children's Hospital that day for her "tune-up" as we like to call them, and she would be there for at least a few days. Holly was already in Ann Arbor for an appointment and Kennedy getting admitted was not expected, so the chaos began. I was in school and had volleyball practice immediately afterward, but I had a TON of work to do after that. I went from practice to our home in Port Huron to pack not only my bags for Boston, but I also had to pack clothes and supplies for Holly and Kennedy in the hospital. When I was done with that, I had to drive back to Marine City to meet with a guy that was going to take over my volleyball team while I was away. The meeting took a couple hours and I remember leaving his house some time around 11 or 11:30. From there I drove to Ann Arbor to drop of the supplies for Holly and Kennedy. I got pulled over on the way for speeding, but when I told the officer what was going on, he just wished me luck and sent me on my way. I left Ann Arbor around 2 or 3 AM and headed back to Metro Airport to catch our flight. So in one day, I went from Port Huron to Marine City to Port Huron to Marine City to Ann Arbor to Metro Airport. Needless to say, when we arrived in Boston I was ready to sleep!
Although we were in Boston for all the wrong reasons, we made the most of it. We learned how to use the subway and went sightseeing in downtown Boston. The highlight of the trip for me was when we went to Fenway Park and took a tour around the stadium. Seeing the "Green Monster" in real life was just awesome for me.
The day of the surgery came and we were all on pins and needles. Dad was cracking jokes right until they took him back for the surgery, and mind you this is no minor surgery. We waited and waited, just hoping for the best. A couple hours later, we got a page and were told to meet in the consutation room with Dr. Sugarbaker. We were in the room waiting for him and for some reason I had a bad feeling about what we were about to hear, although I didn't dare share those feelings with anyone else. Unfortunately, it took only one sentence out of the doctors mouth for me to realize that my feelings were true. Dr. Sugarbaker walked into the room, and while I can't remember the exact words, I believe the first thing he said was something like, "We couldn't get it out." What happened was that the tumor had grown and had actually connected to the wall of his heart. He said they could have tried to cut it away, but there would be a good chance that he'd bleed out on the table.
When we first got a chance to see Dad after the surgery, it was actually very humorous. He was coming off of some heavy anesthetics and he was loopy as hell. When my mom walked into the room, the nurse said to my dad, "Do you recognize her?". Dad groggily looked at mom and with a straight face, he told both the nurse and my mom that he'd never seen her before in his life. The nurse looked concerned and my mom looked scared as shit, then dad cracked the tiniest of grins and we knew he was back to normal (actually, I think he really pissed the nurse off, but it was worth it). Then he started talking about Dr. Sugarbaker's boat. We were asking him what the hell he was talking about, and he kept saying that Dr. Sugarbaker invited him onto his yacht and he was supposed to go back on it. We thought he was messing with us again, but it turned out that he was dead serious. He later told us that while he was under the anesthesia, he had the most vivid dream of his life about being on the boat. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced to this day that even after he recoved and came home, a part of him still believed it really happened.
So back to Rogers City he went, and from that point forward, things got significantly worse...and they got that way fast. Since Mom was around him and tending to him every day, she didn't see the decline in his condition, but I did. I made it up north as much as I could and as time went on, it was appearing more and more apparent that he wasn't going to be able to beat this. I can remember one visit in particular where I had a chance to talk to Dad one on one in their living room with no one else there. He was very emotional and said he was just scared of leaving us kids alone and missing his grandkids. That was very hard to hear, but I tried my best to put his mind at ease. I can remember telling him with tears in my eyes that he had nothing to worry about. He raised all of his kids the right way and it was BECAUSE of him and mom that he didn't have to worry. I told him that I had grown into the man I was today because of his guidance, and I told him I loved him for it. He then broke down (seeing your dad cry is NOT an easy thing) and said some things that stuck with me to this day...some things that I learned valuable lessons from. I remember him saying, "I'm lucky. I'm just so lucky. I'm 61 years old and I've lived a good life." He broke down even more when he said, "I knew guys in the military that never saw their 20th birthday. They never got a chance to get married or ever have kids. Some of them had kids and never had a chance to meet them. I'm lucky to have lived the life I've lived." I bawled right along with him and gave him the most meaningful and heart felt hug that I've ever given anyone. He was dying, yet he was telling me how lucky he was...and I remembered that lesson.
Early in July things got much worse. I noticed that he was getting VERY ill and he was very emotional every time we visited. I think he knew what was coming, but he battled to the very end. I had made a plan to come up in a couple of weeks, but then I got a call from mom around the 17th or 18th of July telling me that Dad's condition was getting pretty bad. I changed my plans and told her I was coming up on Friday of that week, which was the 20th of July. But then in the early hours of the morning on Thursday, July 19th, the phone woke me up...and I knew what I was going to hear. Mom was on the other end of the line and she was much calmer than I had expected. She simply said that Hospice was at the house and they said he only had a couple hours left. I called Dennis and we made a plan to meet at his house and then drive up together. It was one of the longest trips of our lives. We talked a lot, and it was mostly about Dad. We kept wondering if we were going to be too late to say goodbye because it sounded like we probably wouldn't make it. The drive from Dennis's house is about 4 hours, so the chance of him making it until we got there was likely slim.
While we drove up, dad eventually lost conciousness but was still alive. Mom just kept telling him that the boys were on the way. He couldn't answer, but he held on. He fought. He battled. When Dennis and I pulled into the driveway of Dad and Mom's house, there were vehicles everywhere and our Aunt Connie met us as we got out of the truck. "You guys better hurry, he doesn't have long." We walked into the house and walked immediately to the front room where Dad was laying in his hospital bed, and he looked nothing like the man I remember making me the man I am today. There were a lot of people at the house, but in the room with Dad I only remember Mom, Wendy, Russ (Wendy's husband), and Dad. It was very quiet in the room and the ventilator could be heard every so often as Dad took shallow breaths. We walked up to him and surrounded him on the bed. We all told him how much we loved him and how much he meant to us. We told him that he did his job and did it well, and it was time for him to go. "Just let go, Dad...we'll be ok." And within 15 minutes of Dennis and I walking into the room, Dad took his final breath. That stubborn old sucker held on for over 5 hours, but once he knew his boys had shown up and the family was complete...he let go.
That day the world lost a good man. The city of Rogers City lost a valued public servant. A man that was the President of his Union at Calcite, the President of Little League, a City Council member, and a member of so many other committes that I couldn't possibly mention them all. My mom lost a husband and my siblings and I lost our dad. Even more imporantly, that day I lost my hero. I lost a man that taught me everything I know about how to be a good man and a good dad. But although a lot was lost that day, I also gained a new respect for life and for the role we all play in it. Even in death, he continued to teach me lessons...and for that, I am eternally grateful. My dad left a legacy that made me proud to be his son, and if I can be half the man that my dad was...I'll have one hell of a legacy of my own.
Until next time....
Monday, December 26, 2011
And then there were 5...the story of Nolan Ryan Felax....
It took us some time, but we eventually started getting used to life with Cystic Fibrosis. Kennedy learned how to swallow her pills at a very young age, which meant no more opening or crushing them into applesauce (to this day, I do not eat applesauce because of how much we had to feed Kennedy in the first year...barf!). She also eventually started to hold her own nebulizer for treatments, although that took a little more time. There were still a lot of bumps in the road, but we were managing.
We originally took Kennedy to Children's Hospital in Detroit, but some things were starting to rub us wrong about the place. First of all, it really wasn't in the nicest area of Detroit and the cleanliness inside the hospital left a lot to be desired. But more importantly, every visit we started feeling more and more uncomfortable with our doctor. We had TONS of questions (Holly did most of the talking...yeah, I know that's odd considering how she and I are, but she was the one that took the bull by the horns when it came to CF), but each time we asked them we felt as though we were inconveniencing the doctor. He would literally stand by the door with his hand on the handle while we were asking questions, and didn't seem interested in what WE had to say. I specifically remember Holly asking him one time about supplementing her meals with magnesium because she had read something about magnesium deficiency in CF kids, and the doctor was outwardly annoyed at her. He said something to the effect of, "Just give her what I tell you to give her and she'll be ok." Well, that wasn't good enough.
We made an appointment and took a little trip to Ann Arbor to visit the CF center at Mott Children's Hospital on the campus of the University of Michigan. I think we were there for about 5 minutes and we knew this is where we wanted to be. It was clean and the people were so incredibly friendly. We were excited to see how nice everything was, but we still needed to meet the doctor. When we finally did meet her, it became a no-brainer. Her name is Dr. Amy Filbrun and she was so much more compassionate and understanding than any doctor in Detroit. We never got the sense that she was telling us what to do, but merely making suggestions and letting us make the final decision...as it should be. I remember her sitting down with us and LISTENING to us. She would NOT leave the room until she was certain that all of our questions had been answered. We knew this was the place to be and we've been there ever since.
We originally planned on having a third child, but after Kennedy, everything seemed to be up in the air. She demanded so much of our time and attention and that was hard for all of us, including and especially Cheyenne. Then in the fall of 2007, we found out that Holly was pregnant again. Kennedy was now 5 years old and we had finally fallen into a routine, and here comes the news of our new adventure. However, there was a little problem. Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease, which in a nutshell meant that our third child had a 1 in 4 chance of having Cystic Fibrosis. (I could make Mr. Teets happy and draw you a punnett square with dominant and recessive genes, but I hope you'll just take my word for it.) This scared the hell out of me. We knew that there was this risk, but we didn't care. We wanted a third child and if the third one had CF, we would live with it and laugh even more. More than anything I wanted a child without CF, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I really wanted a boy. I mean...I really really wanted a boy! Before Kennedy was born, I really didn't care...but I knew this would likely be our last child so I really wanted a son.
This pregnancy was a little more difficult for Holly than the first two. She ended up getting gestational diabetes, which forced her to really watch what she ate. But in typical Holly fashion, she stepped up to the challenge and got herself through the nine months without much of a problem. It was also a unique feeling for the both of us since we knew there was a 25% chance of the newborn having CF, so mixed in with the excitement was a lot of nervousness and even some fear.
Then the day finally came on April 19th of 2008. The good thing about this time was that I had already known what to expect from the whole "child birth" thing so I wouldn't have to be surprised by the sights and sounds I was about to witness. "A beautiful thing" my ass! As the labor got further and further along, I was brimming with anticipation until the moment finally came. A head! Shoulders! Belly! And....A PENIS!!!! BAM, Felax got himself a boy! Now, I hear people say all the time how beautiful babies are and all of that nonsense, but I'll be the first to admit that he was one ugly baby! Yeah yeah, I can hear many of you now..."How could you say such a thing about your only boy? You're an awful person!" And to that I say this...Nope, I'm an honest person. He honestly looked like a dinosaur, but more on that later. (Sidenote: As ugly as he was then, he is now one of the most beautiful little boys I've ever laid my eyes on...and you KNOW I'm being honest:)
My immense joy, however, was quickly subdued when the nurses seemed to become concerned with something almost immediately. I asked them what the problem was, and they just kind of said that he seemed to be having issues with his breathing. I tried to remain positive, but my thoughts immediately went to CF. We had no way of knowing if he had CF at the time but they nearly immediately drew blood to send it out for DNA testing for CF. They took Nolan to the PICU almost right away and started him on oxygen. We were not able to see him for quite some time and it was killing us. When the nurses finally took Holly and I back to see him, it was once again one of the hardest things I ever went through. He was under a protective bubble and he had all sorts of tubes and wires connected to him, but what bothered me the most is what one nurse in particular had to say. It was the FIRST TIME Holly got to see Nolan since the birth, and she just immediately started pointing out this laundry list of things that seemed to be wrong with him. Long fingers and toes...ears too low on his head....sunken chin....and on and on she went. Before she was able to finish, I left the room in search of something to break. I found my way into a vacant birthing suite and started punching whatever could handle a punch. Fortunately, one of the nursed found me almost immediately and came in and calmed me down. I don't remember the conversation, but I do remember saying over and over, "Not again...why do we have to go through this again."
After a few days, Nolan left the PICU and he got to come home shortly after. Things seemed to be OK as far as his breathing, but something still just didn't seem quite right. Like I said before, he looked like a dinosaur. His hands were so long that the tips of his fingers were almost touching his elbows when he was curled up and we started to notice some of the things that the nurse pointed out. More than anything, we noticed that the shape of his head didn't seem quite right. Holly repeatedly pointed out that she expected him to have an enormous head like his dad, but that just wasn't quite it. His head seemed to be elongated and fairly narrow, but I wasn't sure if it was just the "conehead" thing that all newborns seem to have. Then one time during a doctor visit to Dr. Dev, we were thrown into an absolute roller coaster. First of all, Nolan does NOT have CF. Elation! However, we think he has a condition known as Craniosynostosis, which is basically a malformation of the skull that most of the time needs corrective surgery. I still remember Dr. Dev making a comment to us about how much he wished that things would have turned out perfectly with Nolan for us since Kennedy had been so difficult, but it just wasn't in the cards.
Holly did her research and she ended up choosing a surgeon at Children's Hospital in Detroit. We were both hesitant to go back there, but the neurosurgery department there came highly recommended and we went with it. Nolan's surgery was a major one, and they did it when he was only 3 months old. They made a zig zag incision from one ear, all the way across the top of his head to the other ear. They then peeled his scalp forward and backward, exposing his entire skull. At that point, they had to carefully cut out and remove a long strip of his skull from front to back. His plates had fused together too soon and were no longer pliable, so they had to remove that chunk of his skull in order to begin the reshaping process. When he came out of surgery, he was all wrapped up and his head looked sooooo different. It was round and not elongated like before. Even though a lot of it was because he was all puffed up from the surgery, he honestly looked like a new kid. I remember seeing the incision for the first time in a picture Holly sent me and I was stunned. Here was my little man with an enormous incision and his scalp being held together by a bunch of staples...and he was just sitting there drinking milk like nothing was going on.
The good news was that Nolan's surgery was a success and he would recover just fine, and the zig zag scar was just a little added bonus. Chicks dig scars, you know. The bad news was that this surgery would almost certainly hold back his progress for a few weeks, but it was well worth it our minds. We had gotten the great news that he didn't have CF, the bad news that he needed surgery, and then the good news that the surgery was a success. Unfortunately, a couple months later, that pattern would continue.
We noticed Nolan was not reaching the milestones that he was supposed to reach. Even simple things like rolling over were not even close to possible for this little guy who seemed to struggle with almost every little task that a baby should be able to accomplish. At first we attributed it to the surgery holding him back, but then it got to a point where we knew something else wasn't quite right. We took him back to the doctors and they ran a battery of tests and Nolan was shortly thereafter diagnosed with Cerebal Palsy. I couldn't believe it, even though I think Holly knew it was coming. Needless to say I was devastated, even though it was for very selfish reasons. As a guy, you always have dreams of playing catch with your son and coaching him in little league, and I was slowly seeing those dreams washed away by this diagnosis.
So what exactly is the definition of cerebral palsy? Cerebral palsy is a term used to describe a group of chronic conditions affecting body movements and muscle coordination. It is caused by damage to one or more specific areas of the brain, usually occurring during fetal development or infancy. It also can occur before, during or shortly following birth. In other words, there are all sorts of different severities and cases of CP, and we had no way of knowing how bad Nolan's case was. All I knew was that Holly and I were hell bent on doing everything we could to make him as strong as possible. Yeah...I know I say "Holly and I", but once again I have to be completely honest and let you know that Holly is pretty much a miracle worker when it comes to things like this. She did everything. She scheduled physical therapy, she scheduled occupatioinal therapy, and she scheduled every other appointment, test, or consultation that we had and she made sure it happened. She made sure he was scheduled for a special pre-school in St. Clair. She made sure he had his walkers and his specially fitted wheel chair. During one stretch of about a year or a year and a half, Nolan not only had school in the morning, but also had either physical or occupational therapy three or four times a week over in Chesterfield, which is 20 minutes from where we now live. Holly did it all...I was just along for the ride.
There were other bumps in the road as well. He was also diagnosed with something called Arnold-Chiari brain malformation and he had to have another brain surgery to correct the problem. He had strabismus in one of his eyes and had to have a surgery to correct that. Then one day he started having seizures and has also been diagnosed with epilepsy. I have to once again give Holly some insane amount of credit for how she handled this. During his first three or four seizures, I bawled like an 8th grade girl that got dumped by her boyfriend, but Holly didn't miss a beat. She was the one comforting Nolan while I was sobbing like a pansy ass. Nolan has had 8 or 9 seizures in all and will likely continue to have them, but he is medicated to help control them. Each of these things in and of themselves are life changing events for many people, but with Holly at the helm of this family, we don't miss a beat. (OK...I guess I'm bragging now a little bit, but the strength of this Felax 5 makes me smile.)
Nolan would gradually achieve his milestones because of all of the work Holly put in to make sure of it, but it just took him a LONG time to do so. We weren't sure when he would be able to walk, but at one point I was thinking I'd be happy if he would walk by the time he was 4 years old. That seemed like an achievable milestone with the right amount of work. But heres the thing about Holly and Nolan...they aren't normal. They don't do things half way...they do things 110%. Then a couple of months before this third birthday, the amazing happened in our living room. Nolan, who had been able to sort of stand up on his own for a couple months, decided he wanted to walk. And he did. As I type this, my eyes water and I get a lump in my throat thinking about it. He was still a long ways from being stable while walking, but that little shit just did it. Fortunately I had my phone right next to me and caught the moment on camera, and it was a moment I will never forget. I remember another huge milestone at the end of last year when Nolan, for the first time ever, walked out to the bus instead of being in his wheelchair and he got into a "big boy seat" instead of being strapped into his chair. All of these little moments mean so much more because he had to work so much harder for them and they are a testament to the will of a little boy who has had a lot thrown into his path.
So now here we are, 4 months from "Crazy Nolan's" 4th birthday, and he is further along than I could have ever imagined. There is a special bond that a dad and a son share, and his disability does nothing but make that bond stronger for Nolan and me. I may never have the pleasure of coaching him in little league, but there is nothing that says he can't be my first base coach or my score keeper. He may never score the game winning touchdown, but there is nothing that says that he can't be right next to me cheering on the guy that does. He still does everything that a totally healthy boy would do...he eats his body weight on a regular basis, he likes to wrestle, punch, and bash heads together, and he looks up to his daddy.
The funny thing is that our job as parents is to teach our kids and give them the strength to be successful in their lives, but in this case, Crazy Nolan has been the one giving all of us strength. He is strong, he is resilient...and he makes our family complete.
Until next time...
We originally took Kennedy to Children's Hospital in Detroit, but some things were starting to rub us wrong about the place. First of all, it really wasn't in the nicest area of Detroit and the cleanliness inside the hospital left a lot to be desired. But more importantly, every visit we started feeling more and more uncomfortable with our doctor. We had TONS of questions (Holly did most of the talking...yeah, I know that's odd considering how she and I are, but she was the one that took the bull by the horns when it came to CF), but each time we asked them we felt as though we were inconveniencing the doctor. He would literally stand by the door with his hand on the handle while we were asking questions, and didn't seem interested in what WE had to say. I specifically remember Holly asking him one time about supplementing her meals with magnesium because she had read something about magnesium deficiency in CF kids, and the doctor was outwardly annoyed at her. He said something to the effect of, "Just give her what I tell you to give her and she'll be ok." Well, that wasn't good enough.
We made an appointment and took a little trip to Ann Arbor to visit the CF center at Mott Children's Hospital on the campus of the University of Michigan. I think we were there for about 5 minutes and we knew this is where we wanted to be. It was clean and the people were so incredibly friendly. We were excited to see how nice everything was, but we still needed to meet the doctor. When we finally did meet her, it became a no-brainer. Her name is Dr. Amy Filbrun and she was so much more compassionate and understanding than any doctor in Detroit. We never got the sense that she was telling us what to do, but merely making suggestions and letting us make the final decision...as it should be. I remember her sitting down with us and LISTENING to us. She would NOT leave the room until she was certain that all of our questions had been answered. We knew this was the place to be and we've been there ever since.
We originally planned on having a third child, but after Kennedy, everything seemed to be up in the air. She demanded so much of our time and attention and that was hard for all of us, including and especially Cheyenne. Then in the fall of 2007, we found out that Holly was pregnant again. Kennedy was now 5 years old and we had finally fallen into a routine, and here comes the news of our new adventure. However, there was a little problem. Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease, which in a nutshell meant that our third child had a 1 in 4 chance of having Cystic Fibrosis. (I could make Mr. Teets happy and draw you a punnett square with dominant and recessive genes, but I hope you'll just take my word for it.) This scared the hell out of me. We knew that there was this risk, but we didn't care. We wanted a third child and if the third one had CF, we would live with it and laugh even more. More than anything I wanted a child without CF, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I really wanted a boy. I mean...I really really wanted a boy! Before Kennedy was born, I really didn't care...but I knew this would likely be our last child so I really wanted a son.
This pregnancy was a little more difficult for Holly than the first two. She ended up getting gestational diabetes, which forced her to really watch what she ate. But in typical Holly fashion, she stepped up to the challenge and got herself through the nine months without much of a problem. It was also a unique feeling for the both of us since we knew there was a 25% chance of the newborn having CF, so mixed in with the excitement was a lot of nervousness and even some fear.
Then the day finally came on April 19th of 2008. The good thing about this time was that I had already known what to expect from the whole "child birth" thing so I wouldn't have to be surprised by the sights and sounds I was about to witness. "A beautiful thing" my ass! As the labor got further and further along, I was brimming with anticipation until the moment finally came. A head! Shoulders! Belly! And....A PENIS!!!! BAM, Felax got himself a boy! Now, I hear people say all the time how beautiful babies are and all of that nonsense, but I'll be the first to admit that he was one ugly baby! Yeah yeah, I can hear many of you now..."How could you say such a thing about your only boy? You're an awful person!" And to that I say this...Nope, I'm an honest person. He honestly looked like a dinosaur, but more on that later. (Sidenote: As ugly as he was then, he is now one of the most beautiful little boys I've ever laid my eyes on...and you KNOW I'm being honest:)
My immense joy, however, was quickly subdued when the nurses seemed to become concerned with something almost immediately. I asked them what the problem was, and they just kind of said that he seemed to be having issues with his breathing. I tried to remain positive, but my thoughts immediately went to CF. We had no way of knowing if he had CF at the time but they nearly immediately drew blood to send it out for DNA testing for CF. They took Nolan to the PICU almost right away and started him on oxygen. We were not able to see him for quite some time and it was killing us. When the nurses finally took Holly and I back to see him, it was once again one of the hardest things I ever went through. He was under a protective bubble and he had all sorts of tubes and wires connected to him, but what bothered me the most is what one nurse in particular had to say. It was the FIRST TIME Holly got to see Nolan since the birth, and she just immediately started pointing out this laundry list of things that seemed to be wrong with him. Long fingers and toes...ears too low on his head....sunken chin....and on and on she went. Before she was able to finish, I left the room in search of something to break. I found my way into a vacant birthing suite and started punching whatever could handle a punch. Fortunately, one of the nursed found me almost immediately and came in and calmed me down. I don't remember the conversation, but I do remember saying over and over, "Not again...why do we have to go through this again."
After a few days, Nolan left the PICU and he got to come home shortly after. Things seemed to be OK as far as his breathing, but something still just didn't seem quite right. Like I said before, he looked like a dinosaur. His hands were so long that the tips of his fingers were almost touching his elbows when he was curled up and we started to notice some of the things that the nurse pointed out. More than anything, we noticed that the shape of his head didn't seem quite right. Holly repeatedly pointed out that she expected him to have an enormous head like his dad, but that just wasn't quite it. His head seemed to be elongated and fairly narrow, but I wasn't sure if it was just the "conehead" thing that all newborns seem to have. Then one time during a doctor visit to Dr. Dev, we were thrown into an absolute roller coaster. First of all, Nolan does NOT have CF. Elation! However, we think he has a condition known as Craniosynostosis, which is basically a malformation of the skull that most of the time needs corrective surgery. I still remember Dr. Dev making a comment to us about how much he wished that things would have turned out perfectly with Nolan for us since Kennedy had been so difficult, but it just wasn't in the cards.
Holly did her research and she ended up choosing a surgeon at Children's Hospital in Detroit. We were both hesitant to go back there, but the neurosurgery department there came highly recommended and we went with it. Nolan's surgery was a major one, and they did it when he was only 3 months old. They made a zig zag incision from one ear, all the way across the top of his head to the other ear. They then peeled his scalp forward and backward, exposing his entire skull. At that point, they had to carefully cut out and remove a long strip of his skull from front to back. His plates had fused together too soon and were no longer pliable, so they had to remove that chunk of his skull in order to begin the reshaping process. When he came out of surgery, he was all wrapped up and his head looked sooooo different. It was round and not elongated like before. Even though a lot of it was because he was all puffed up from the surgery, he honestly looked like a new kid. I remember seeing the incision for the first time in a picture Holly sent me and I was stunned. Here was my little man with an enormous incision and his scalp being held together by a bunch of staples...and he was just sitting there drinking milk like nothing was going on.
The good news was that Nolan's surgery was a success and he would recover just fine, and the zig zag scar was just a little added bonus. Chicks dig scars, you know. The bad news was that this surgery would almost certainly hold back his progress for a few weeks, but it was well worth it our minds. We had gotten the great news that he didn't have CF, the bad news that he needed surgery, and then the good news that the surgery was a success. Unfortunately, a couple months later, that pattern would continue.
We noticed Nolan was not reaching the milestones that he was supposed to reach. Even simple things like rolling over were not even close to possible for this little guy who seemed to struggle with almost every little task that a baby should be able to accomplish. At first we attributed it to the surgery holding him back, but then it got to a point where we knew something else wasn't quite right. We took him back to the doctors and they ran a battery of tests and Nolan was shortly thereafter diagnosed with Cerebal Palsy. I couldn't believe it, even though I think Holly knew it was coming. Needless to say I was devastated, even though it was for very selfish reasons. As a guy, you always have dreams of playing catch with your son and coaching him in little league, and I was slowly seeing those dreams washed away by this diagnosis.
So what exactly is the definition of cerebral palsy? Cerebral palsy is a term used to describe a group of chronic conditions affecting body movements and muscle coordination. It is caused by damage to one or more specific areas of the brain, usually occurring during fetal development or infancy. It also can occur before, during or shortly following birth. In other words, there are all sorts of different severities and cases of CP, and we had no way of knowing how bad Nolan's case was. All I knew was that Holly and I were hell bent on doing everything we could to make him as strong as possible. Yeah...I know I say "Holly and I", but once again I have to be completely honest and let you know that Holly is pretty much a miracle worker when it comes to things like this. She did everything. She scheduled physical therapy, she scheduled occupatioinal therapy, and she scheduled every other appointment, test, or consultation that we had and she made sure it happened. She made sure he was scheduled for a special pre-school in St. Clair. She made sure he had his walkers and his specially fitted wheel chair. During one stretch of about a year or a year and a half, Nolan not only had school in the morning, but also had either physical or occupational therapy three or four times a week over in Chesterfield, which is 20 minutes from where we now live. Holly did it all...I was just along for the ride.
There were other bumps in the road as well. He was also diagnosed with something called Arnold-Chiari brain malformation and he had to have another brain surgery to correct the problem. He had strabismus in one of his eyes and had to have a surgery to correct that. Then one day he started having seizures and has also been diagnosed with epilepsy. I have to once again give Holly some insane amount of credit for how she handled this. During his first three or four seizures, I bawled like an 8th grade girl that got dumped by her boyfriend, but Holly didn't miss a beat. She was the one comforting Nolan while I was sobbing like a pansy ass. Nolan has had 8 or 9 seizures in all and will likely continue to have them, but he is medicated to help control them. Each of these things in and of themselves are life changing events for many people, but with Holly at the helm of this family, we don't miss a beat. (OK...I guess I'm bragging now a little bit, but the strength of this Felax 5 makes me smile.)
Nolan would gradually achieve his milestones because of all of the work Holly put in to make sure of it, but it just took him a LONG time to do so. We weren't sure when he would be able to walk, but at one point I was thinking I'd be happy if he would walk by the time he was 4 years old. That seemed like an achievable milestone with the right amount of work. But heres the thing about Holly and Nolan...they aren't normal. They don't do things half way...they do things 110%. Then a couple of months before this third birthday, the amazing happened in our living room. Nolan, who had been able to sort of stand up on his own for a couple months, decided he wanted to walk. And he did. As I type this, my eyes water and I get a lump in my throat thinking about it. He was still a long ways from being stable while walking, but that little shit just did it. Fortunately I had my phone right next to me and caught the moment on camera, and it was a moment I will never forget. I remember another huge milestone at the end of last year when Nolan, for the first time ever, walked out to the bus instead of being in his wheelchair and he got into a "big boy seat" instead of being strapped into his chair. All of these little moments mean so much more because he had to work so much harder for them and they are a testament to the will of a little boy who has had a lot thrown into his path.
So now here we are, 4 months from "Crazy Nolan's" 4th birthday, and he is further along than I could have ever imagined. There is a special bond that a dad and a son share, and his disability does nothing but make that bond stronger for Nolan and me. I may never have the pleasure of coaching him in little league, but there is nothing that says he can't be my first base coach or my score keeper. He may never score the game winning touchdown, but there is nothing that says that he can't be right next to me cheering on the guy that does. He still does everything that a totally healthy boy would do...he eats his body weight on a regular basis, he likes to wrestle, punch, and bash heads together, and he looks up to his daddy.
The funny thing is that our job as parents is to teach our kids and give them the strength to be successful in their lives, but in this case, Crazy Nolan has been the one giving all of us strength. He is strong, he is resilient...and he makes our family complete.
Until next time...
Mrs. Felax and Little Miss Kennedy....
So once I got the difficult task of winning over Holly's dad and the rest of her family, things just sort of fell into place. I graduated from college and lined up several job interviews, including the one down here at East China. I had no intention of actually working down here since it was so far away from where I grew up, but they offered me a job about three hours after my interview and I took the position. I swore I'd never teach middle school after a negative middle school subbing experience, but considering it was May and I was getting a job offer...I said yes. When I received my diploma in the spring of 2000, I was already employed, and that was a GREAT feeling.
We decided to move into an apartment building in Chesterfield, which is where we lived for our first year together. Throughout that first year, we began to talk about getting married and buying a house. We hated the apartment complex we were in, and it seemed to be getting worse. It didn't help that about a month after we moved in, a young man was murdered in a Mancino's joint about two miles down the road. It was HUGE news in the area and it made me start to wonder what I had gotten myself into. As far as the marriage, we both just kinda agreed that it was what we wanted to do. We went ring shopping together and Holly found a ring that she fell in love with, so I bought it and we waited for it to be set and fitted to her finger. We returned to the store when the ring came in, but when we got back into the car I realized something that was missing....a proposal. So, being the romantic that I am...as we were sitting in the car in the parking lot of the jewelry store...I opened up the ring package and held it out to her and said, "Soooo, you wanna get married or what?" And guess what? She said yes:)
We got married sometime in April of 2001, complete with a party bus and the K of C hall. We were living on a first year teachers salary, so we really didn't have the money for a honeymoon. We made up for it by jumping into our Buick and taking a few days to be alone up in the U.P. Yeah, most people go to the Bahamas or Jamaica...not us, we went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in April. While it wasn't exactly paradise, it was nice to get away for a few days alone. Little did we know that it would be the last time we would ever have the opportunity to get away by ourselves due to what was coming in the years to follow.
About nine months after our wedding, Holly was due to have a little bundle of joy. (9 months...weird. Hey, the U.P. isn't paradise but they DO have motels up there!) We decided that we didn't want to know what we were having, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The pregancy was fairly normal and uneventful, and then in February the day arrived. February 17th was going to be the day that I'd see this thing that everyone refers to as "the miracle of life." Well, you can call me a party pooper or whatever else you'd like, but the miracle of life is just damn gross. Don't get me wrong, watching that little head pop out is about the biggest thrill that I've ever had, but the entire process was incredibly disturbing. You always hear stories about how things go so smoothly and the mom and dad are nothing but smiles through the whole thing...well that's a bunch of crap. I was a nervous wreck and I think Holly actually had FIVE epidurals put in. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. Everything that could have went wrong did go wrong. The first one was ineffective. A couple of them missed. One got pulled out. It was a mess. Then as Holly starts into the toughest part, she starts puking all over the place. I've never been in a war, but I'm pretty sure the sights, smells, sounds, and amount of blood in that room would be comparable to at least a small battle.
In the end, I was a dad again and a beautiful baby girl came out. Holly came up with the name "Kennedy" and I loved it from the start. Those of you that are from the 80's and 90's like me might remember the MTV V.J. named Kennedy, and that was the only female I had ever heard of with that name up until that point. Of course, my dad's reaction was something along the lines of, "Good name...good democratic president." We took her home and the adventure of raising a baby began. Little did we know at the time that things would get VERY difficult in the weeks to come.
Early on in her life, Kennedy was jaundiced, so she spend a few extra days in the hospital under those cool looking lights to get rid of the jaundice. Then once we got home, it seemed to me that rather than being the yellowish color that jaundice causes, she was EXTREMELY pale. I didn't think anything of it considering Holly is white enough to be in one of those Twilight movies, and I'm not exactly the definition of dark skinned sexiness. Holly breast fed Kennedy right from the start and she really had no problem with feeding. The problem was, nothing seemed to ever stay down. Eat. Puke. Repeat. Eat. Puke. Repeat. I really didn't know any better since it was my first experience with a baby. I just thought she was "spitting up" once in a while and that there was no reason for concern. Upon reflection, it is actually quite comical how many times Holly or I had to essentially leap across the table to catch a handful of barf. No joke, it was several times a day and after the first few days, you just get used to it. It got to the point that we could tell it was coming, so I'd just jump up and cup my hand under her chin and catch it. Yeah, I know it's gross, but once you've lived it, it's not all that big of a deal.
We started thinking that something might be wrong, but she seemed to be content enough. We took her for a regular checkup to Dr. Dev (one of the best doctors we've ever had the pleasure of working with) in Port Huron, and he seemed to be mildly concerned about her lack of weight gain and paleness. He sent us to the Port Huron hospital to get some blood work done, and in hindsight he actually may have saved her life by doing so. I still remember the doctors at Port Huron telling Holly and I that there was something very wrong in her blood and that they needed to send her to the hospital in "the city" immediately. Holly and I both thought that they meant the other Port Huron Hospital that was in downtown Port Huron, but we soon realized that they were sending us to Children's Hospital in Detroit. Holly went with Kennedy in the ambulance and I drove separately....and the whirlwind was beginning.
At the hospital, they seemed to be running an ENDLESS amount of tests. One of the hardest moments of my life came one day when they needed to draw blood and I volunteered to go with her since Holly was getting exhausted from doing most of the work. When they got her in the room to draw blood, they couldn't find a good vein to draw from since they had drawn blood about a dozen times in the previous few days. She was literally stuck with holes all over the place, so the next option was to find a vein in her skull. I had to help hold her down along with a pair of other nurses. I held her legs while each nurse held and arm, and they stuck needles in her head while I put my head down and cried like a baby. She screamed like I've never heard her scream, but there was nothing I could do to help her other than just talk to her and let her know that daddy was there.
Days went by and still no diagnosis. Then one day the doc came in and sat us down. The first question he asked was, "Do you have a history of Cystic Fibrosis in your family?" We had heard this question a few times, and we answered no just like every other time. The doc explained to us that they had eliminated a lot of other possiblities and that they were going to treat it as CF until they could get definitive DNA blood work done to verify that it was indeed CF. My only thought was, "What the hell is Cystic Fibrosis?" Holly called her mom and asked her to look up some information on CF on the internet so that we had some idea as to what we were dealing with. I answered the phone when she called back to talk to Holly and I still remember the conversation.
Me: "Well, did you find any info on CF?"
Janet: "Yeah."
Me: "Is it bad?"
Janet: "Well, it's not good."
Our world seemed to be flipping upside down. I was a wreck, but Holly NEVER flinched. I was busy feeling sorry for myself and she was busy asking questions. I remember the doctors specifically telling us something to the effect of, "This is going to seem overwhelming. Very overwhelming actually. But keep in mind, CF is not a death sentence." They started to talk to us about some of the basics of what we would have to deal with, and I remember one time asking them one time about how long we would have to give her this medicine and do all these treatments. The nurse just kind of looked at me funny and before she had a chance to answer, Holly just said, "forever". I had no idea what was going on. How could this happen to us? Why is it happening? But soon afterward, we both realized that there was no sense in asking why...but rather we should be asking, "What now?"
Just like they told us at the hospital, it took time to find our way. I can honestly say that for that first year, if it weren't for Holly our family would have fallen apart at the seams. I was still in a state of denial, but she was in a state of determination. She spent more time researching CF on the internet in those first two years than I've ever spent. She joined support groups, chat groups on the internet, e-mail groups, and anything else that would help her understand what she needed to do to help Kennedy. Where did I get all MY information? From Holly...that's all. There is WAY too much about CF to even begin to discuss, but essentially it causes a thick mucus to be secreted in many of the body's organs, which leads to infections and a whole bunch of other problems. The disease affects all organs, but the lungs are the ones that seem to take the biggest hit.
So what does a day or a week in the life of having a child with CF encompass? I'll touch on some of the basics below, but this really only scratches the surface.
Breathing Treatments
Kennedy does numerous inhaled treatments every day, twice a day. In the morning, the treatment lasts between an hour and an hour and a half. She does inhaled Saline, Pulmicort, Xopenex, and Pulmozyme. In the evening, she does about 45 minutes to an hour of breating treatment, including inhaled Saline, Pulmicort, and Xopenex. These treatments serve many different purposes, from opening up the airways to loosening the mucus to moisturizing the airways.
Chest Physical Therapy
When she was younger, we had to do chest therapy by hand. This included pounding on her chest with a cupped hand in many different locations on her chest and back. Now the CPT is done using a $16,000 machine called "The Vest" (thank god for good insurance). This therapy is designed to loosen the mucus in her lungs so that she can cough it out.
Pills, Pills, and more Pills
Currently, Kennedy takes approximately 25 to 30 pills on a daily basis. The most important ones are the enzymes that she has to take every single time she eats, which allows her body to break down the food and digest it. She also takes many supplements, some prescribed and others over the counter.
Nasal Rinsing Galore
Kennedy needs to use the NeilMed sinus rinse between 2 and 4 times daily. This essentially involves spraying water into one nostril and out the other, cleaning out everything in it's path.
Shakes
One of the benefits of having CF is that you are encouraged to have high calorie, high fat meals. Each morning and before bedtime, Holly and I make Kennedy a specially made "ScandiShake"...a 600 calorie treat:)
Those are some of the main things that she does on a daily basis, but there are a lot of things that she deals with that I didn't mention. She must constantly stay hydrated and often has a very difficult time staying cool in the summer. She deals with frequent stomach aches and headaches, and has been on antibiotics more times than any typical person is on them in their entire lives. I think we lost count of how many times she's been on antibiotics when we got up to 60 or 70 times (once again, not an exaggeration).
She has been hospitalized an average of once a year and has had multiple surgeries to clean out her lungs, remove polyps, and remove her adnoids. She is currently on IV antibiotics that we give to her through a picc line three times a day at precicely 7 AM, 3 PM, and 11 PM. The IV's take about 45 minutes to an hour, so in addition to the time spent with treatment and CPT, she spends about 5 to 6 hours a day doing CF related things.
At the end of the day, she is one of the strongest kids I've ever met. I called her the day after her latest surgery and I could tell she was feeling like total crap. I asked her how she was doing and she just said, "good". Is it fair that she has to deal with all this crap? No. Can we change it? Also no. So we choose to deal with it and move on. CF is a common topic of conversation in our house...we don't hide from it or treat it like it doesnt' exist. It is a part of our family and we deal with it. We deal with it using humor and probably a lot of inappropriate humor at that, but that is just the way we are.
A lady that I used to work with had a son with CF, and when I approached her and asked her how they dealt with the disease, she just looked at me and said, "We laugh. And we laugh alot. Every day...we laugh." Probably the best advice I've ever gotten...so what do we do? We laugh.
Until next time....
We decided to move into an apartment building in Chesterfield, which is where we lived for our first year together. Throughout that first year, we began to talk about getting married and buying a house. We hated the apartment complex we were in, and it seemed to be getting worse. It didn't help that about a month after we moved in, a young man was murdered in a Mancino's joint about two miles down the road. It was HUGE news in the area and it made me start to wonder what I had gotten myself into. As far as the marriage, we both just kinda agreed that it was what we wanted to do. We went ring shopping together and Holly found a ring that she fell in love with, so I bought it and we waited for it to be set and fitted to her finger. We returned to the store when the ring came in, but when we got back into the car I realized something that was missing....a proposal. So, being the romantic that I am...as we were sitting in the car in the parking lot of the jewelry store...I opened up the ring package and held it out to her and said, "Soooo, you wanna get married or what?" And guess what? She said yes:)
We got married sometime in April of 2001, complete with a party bus and the K of C hall. We were living on a first year teachers salary, so we really didn't have the money for a honeymoon. We made up for it by jumping into our Buick and taking a few days to be alone up in the U.P. Yeah, most people go to the Bahamas or Jamaica...not us, we went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in April. While it wasn't exactly paradise, it was nice to get away for a few days alone. Little did we know that it would be the last time we would ever have the opportunity to get away by ourselves due to what was coming in the years to follow.
About nine months after our wedding, Holly was due to have a little bundle of joy. (9 months...weird. Hey, the U.P. isn't paradise but they DO have motels up there!) We decided that we didn't want to know what we were having, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The pregancy was fairly normal and uneventful, and then in February the day arrived. February 17th was going to be the day that I'd see this thing that everyone refers to as "the miracle of life." Well, you can call me a party pooper or whatever else you'd like, but the miracle of life is just damn gross. Don't get me wrong, watching that little head pop out is about the biggest thrill that I've ever had, but the entire process was incredibly disturbing. You always hear stories about how things go so smoothly and the mom and dad are nothing but smiles through the whole thing...well that's a bunch of crap. I was a nervous wreck and I think Holly actually had FIVE epidurals put in. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. Everything that could have went wrong did go wrong. The first one was ineffective. A couple of them missed. One got pulled out. It was a mess. Then as Holly starts into the toughest part, she starts puking all over the place. I've never been in a war, but I'm pretty sure the sights, smells, sounds, and amount of blood in that room would be comparable to at least a small battle.
In the end, I was a dad again and a beautiful baby girl came out. Holly came up with the name "Kennedy" and I loved it from the start. Those of you that are from the 80's and 90's like me might remember the MTV V.J. named Kennedy, and that was the only female I had ever heard of with that name up until that point. Of course, my dad's reaction was something along the lines of, "Good name...good democratic president." We took her home and the adventure of raising a baby began. Little did we know at the time that things would get VERY difficult in the weeks to come.
Early on in her life, Kennedy was jaundiced, so she spend a few extra days in the hospital under those cool looking lights to get rid of the jaundice. Then once we got home, it seemed to me that rather than being the yellowish color that jaundice causes, she was EXTREMELY pale. I didn't think anything of it considering Holly is white enough to be in one of those Twilight movies, and I'm not exactly the definition of dark skinned sexiness. Holly breast fed Kennedy right from the start and she really had no problem with feeding. The problem was, nothing seemed to ever stay down. Eat. Puke. Repeat. Eat. Puke. Repeat. I really didn't know any better since it was my first experience with a baby. I just thought she was "spitting up" once in a while and that there was no reason for concern. Upon reflection, it is actually quite comical how many times Holly or I had to essentially leap across the table to catch a handful of barf. No joke, it was several times a day and after the first few days, you just get used to it. It got to the point that we could tell it was coming, so I'd just jump up and cup my hand under her chin and catch it. Yeah, I know it's gross, but once you've lived it, it's not all that big of a deal.
We started thinking that something might be wrong, but she seemed to be content enough. We took her for a regular checkup to Dr. Dev (one of the best doctors we've ever had the pleasure of working with) in Port Huron, and he seemed to be mildly concerned about her lack of weight gain and paleness. He sent us to the Port Huron hospital to get some blood work done, and in hindsight he actually may have saved her life by doing so. I still remember the doctors at Port Huron telling Holly and I that there was something very wrong in her blood and that they needed to send her to the hospital in "the city" immediately. Holly and I both thought that they meant the other Port Huron Hospital that was in downtown Port Huron, but we soon realized that they were sending us to Children's Hospital in Detroit. Holly went with Kennedy in the ambulance and I drove separately....and the whirlwind was beginning.
At the hospital, they seemed to be running an ENDLESS amount of tests. One of the hardest moments of my life came one day when they needed to draw blood and I volunteered to go with her since Holly was getting exhausted from doing most of the work. When they got her in the room to draw blood, they couldn't find a good vein to draw from since they had drawn blood about a dozen times in the previous few days. She was literally stuck with holes all over the place, so the next option was to find a vein in her skull. I had to help hold her down along with a pair of other nurses. I held her legs while each nurse held and arm, and they stuck needles in her head while I put my head down and cried like a baby. She screamed like I've never heard her scream, but there was nothing I could do to help her other than just talk to her and let her know that daddy was there.
Days went by and still no diagnosis. Then one day the doc came in and sat us down. The first question he asked was, "Do you have a history of Cystic Fibrosis in your family?" We had heard this question a few times, and we answered no just like every other time. The doc explained to us that they had eliminated a lot of other possiblities and that they were going to treat it as CF until they could get definitive DNA blood work done to verify that it was indeed CF. My only thought was, "What the hell is Cystic Fibrosis?" Holly called her mom and asked her to look up some information on CF on the internet so that we had some idea as to what we were dealing with. I answered the phone when she called back to talk to Holly and I still remember the conversation.
Me: "Well, did you find any info on CF?"
Janet: "Yeah."
Me: "Is it bad?"
Janet: "Well, it's not good."
Our world seemed to be flipping upside down. I was a wreck, but Holly NEVER flinched. I was busy feeling sorry for myself and she was busy asking questions. I remember the doctors specifically telling us something to the effect of, "This is going to seem overwhelming. Very overwhelming actually. But keep in mind, CF is not a death sentence." They started to talk to us about some of the basics of what we would have to deal with, and I remember one time asking them one time about how long we would have to give her this medicine and do all these treatments. The nurse just kind of looked at me funny and before she had a chance to answer, Holly just said, "forever". I had no idea what was going on. How could this happen to us? Why is it happening? But soon afterward, we both realized that there was no sense in asking why...but rather we should be asking, "What now?"
Just like they told us at the hospital, it took time to find our way. I can honestly say that for that first year, if it weren't for Holly our family would have fallen apart at the seams. I was still in a state of denial, but she was in a state of determination. She spent more time researching CF on the internet in those first two years than I've ever spent. She joined support groups, chat groups on the internet, e-mail groups, and anything else that would help her understand what she needed to do to help Kennedy. Where did I get all MY information? From Holly...that's all. There is WAY too much about CF to even begin to discuss, but essentially it causes a thick mucus to be secreted in many of the body's organs, which leads to infections and a whole bunch of other problems. The disease affects all organs, but the lungs are the ones that seem to take the biggest hit.
So what does a day or a week in the life of having a child with CF encompass? I'll touch on some of the basics below, but this really only scratches the surface.
Breathing Treatments
Kennedy does numerous inhaled treatments every day, twice a day. In the morning, the treatment lasts between an hour and an hour and a half. She does inhaled Saline, Pulmicort, Xopenex, and Pulmozyme. In the evening, she does about 45 minutes to an hour of breating treatment, including inhaled Saline, Pulmicort, and Xopenex. These treatments serve many different purposes, from opening up the airways to loosening the mucus to moisturizing the airways.
Chest Physical Therapy
When she was younger, we had to do chest therapy by hand. This included pounding on her chest with a cupped hand in many different locations on her chest and back. Now the CPT is done using a $16,000 machine called "The Vest" (thank god for good insurance). This therapy is designed to loosen the mucus in her lungs so that she can cough it out.
Pills, Pills, and more Pills
Currently, Kennedy takes approximately 25 to 30 pills on a daily basis. The most important ones are the enzymes that she has to take every single time she eats, which allows her body to break down the food and digest it. She also takes many supplements, some prescribed and others over the counter.
Nasal Rinsing Galore
Kennedy needs to use the NeilMed sinus rinse between 2 and 4 times daily. This essentially involves spraying water into one nostril and out the other, cleaning out everything in it's path.
Shakes
One of the benefits of having CF is that you are encouraged to have high calorie, high fat meals. Each morning and before bedtime, Holly and I make Kennedy a specially made "ScandiShake"...a 600 calorie treat:)
Those are some of the main things that she does on a daily basis, but there are a lot of things that she deals with that I didn't mention. She must constantly stay hydrated and often has a very difficult time staying cool in the summer. She deals with frequent stomach aches and headaches, and has been on antibiotics more times than any typical person is on them in their entire lives. I think we lost count of how many times she's been on antibiotics when we got up to 60 or 70 times (once again, not an exaggeration).
She has been hospitalized an average of once a year and has had multiple surgeries to clean out her lungs, remove polyps, and remove her adnoids. She is currently on IV antibiotics that we give to her through a picc line three times a day at precicely 7 AM, 3 PM, and 11 PM. The IV's take about 45 minutes to an hour, so in addition to the time spent with treatment and CPT, she spends about 5 to 6 hours a day doing CF related things.
At the end of the day, she is one of the strongest kids I've ever met. I called her the day after her latest surgery and I could tell she was feeling like total crap. I asked her how she was doing and she just said, "good". Is it fair that she has to deal with all this crap? No. Can we change it? Also no. So we choose to deal with it and move on. CF is a common topic of conversation in our house...we don't hide from it or treat it like it doesnt' exist. It is a part of our family and we deal with it. We deal with it using humor and probably a lot of inappropriate humor at that, but that is just the way we are.
A lady that I used to work with had a son with CF, and when I approached her and asked her how they dealt with the disease, she just looked at me and said, "We laugh. And we laugh alot. Every day...we laugh." Probably the best advice I've ever gotten...so what do we do? We laugh.
Until next time....
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Little Miss Cheyenne:)
When I decided to write in this blog, the primary purpose was to let people in on a little dose of our everyday lives and the chaos that is known as "The Felax's", but as I thought about it more and more, the story of how we came to be the Felax Five is just, well, comical. I'll leave out the mundane details of the journey, but touching on the highlights, craziness, and the humor is what I intend to do.
So after Holly and I have our first date, we eventually start talking more and I start to get to know her more and more. I think I caught her off guard a week or so later when I made a comment about wanting to meet her daughter, Cheyenne (you know...the one that had recently gotten a ridiculous pickle birthday card from some stranger). I think she figured that having a child would scare most guys away, which I'm sure it would, but I accepted from day one that if I chose to pursue this relationship that I would be dating both of them, technically speaking. I still vividly remember the first time I saw Cheyenne. Keep in mind I was a 21 year old college student and the only experience I EVER had with kids was with my nephew Travis, so when this little one year old girl came walking into my parents living room, I really had no idea what to expect. I know my first thought was, "yup, it's a mini Holly". She was wearing the cutest little black and white jacket that was in the pattern of a cow, and I'm pretty sure she only had two teeth. But one thing I can tell you for sure was that she was a beautiful little thing and I was happy to meet her.
The next big hurdle was meeting her dad and the rest of the family. I knew from day one that Louie wasn't crazy about the fact that Holly was seeing me, which made that first meeting even more uncomfortable. The first time I met the family was when I was on my way back to college. My plan was to stop out, say hello, and get the hell out of there as fast as I could. Shortly before I left my parents house, Holly called and asked me if I had any dime rolls. Dime rolls? Why the heck are you asking me if I have any dime rolls? She said that her dad had some dimes that he wanted to roll but he was out of dime rolls. Now...I don't know if this was some sort of "Louie Test" or not, but thankfully my mom had some dime rolls so I could get my first brownie point! When I showed up, I was nervous as hell...more nervous than I'd ever been before to meet anyones parents. I don't remember much from that first meeting because her family doesn't say a whole lot, but I do remember one interaction I had with her dad.
Louie: "Didn't you play baseball?"
Me: "Uh...yeah."
Louie: "That's what I thought. I remember seeing your name in the paper a few times."
Me: "Er...uh...yeah, that was me."
And that was it. I wasn't sure what he was getting at, but in hindsight I think he was just trying to be nice and start a conversation. It was awkward, but I think he was happy that I was from the area and that he already knew my family since he worked with my mom for a few years.
As time went by, our relationship got more and more serious. We had a one minor issue a few months in when Holly pretty much told me that she didn't want to ever see or talk to me again. When I asked her why, she just said, "You talk too much." Not a joke. She literally dumped me because I talked too much. Compared to her however, pretty much everyone talks too much. A couple days later, we reconciled and things were back to...well...normal I guess.
I still had another year of college left, so we carried on a long distance relationship from Posen to Saginaw. It actually worked out nicely since Holly was technically supposed to drive Cheyenne to Standish every other weekend for her biological fathers visitation. So instead, Holly offered to just drive an extra half hour down state and cut down on Biofat's trip. (I don't want to use his name, and Biofat is a nice short name for biological father...I have a lot of other names I'd like to use, but this is a family show.) If it gives you ANY idea of the type of people we were dealing with, when Holly offered to drive an extra half hour to Saginaw to cut down on his trip from Lansing, the first time he said, "No, I want to do what the custody papers say, and they say to meet in Standish." So, Holly just dropped her off in Standish and basically followed them for the next half hour and came to Saginaw.
The experience with Biofat was possibly one of the most difficult things we've ever gone through...and those of you that know us know that this is a BOLD statement. Biofat continuously broke visitations, made excuses, and pretty much acted like the total dick that he was. One visitation VERY early on, he brought a 2-year old Cheyenne back with her ears pierced. Holly promptly took them out and told him that no decisions like that can be made without her approval...and she didn't approve. I had grown very fond and close to Cheyenne, but his continued "on and off" relationship was having a HUGE affect on her. His child support payments were spotty at best, and he never seemed able to make more than a few visitations in a row. Then the shit hit the fan one time when upon returning home after a visitation, Holly saw Cheyenne repeatedly hit herself in the head while in the back seat. Holly asked Cheyenne why she was doing it, and all she said was, "Papa hit me. Head. Papa hit me. Head." Needless to say, we contacted a lawyer and demanded that an investigation be done and we stopped allowing visitation altogether until we were satisfied that she was going into a safe situation.
Not surprisingly, we stopped hearing from Biofat shortly after a court hearing where he represented himself and the judge ordered his dad to sign some "release of information" papers so that they could do a background check on Cheyenne's papa. One of the most ridiculous things about that court hearing was hearing Biofat tell the judge that he thought it was Holly's dad that was abusing Cheyenne. He also said that he witnessed abuse, and when the judge asked what he saw, he said, "I can remember watching Louie give Cheyenne a bath in their washtub." Yeah...apparantly giving a bath in a wash tub is abuse. This is especially comical for anyone that knows Louie. Cheyenne was his first grandchild and they were as close as bark to a tree. He literally did everything with her and would never do anything to harm her. As we speak, they are upstairs at my house watching TV together...13 years later:)
So we stopped hearing from Biofat and we thought that maybe we were done with him, until a horrible day a couple years later when he called and basically accused Holly of denying him his parental rights. Keep in mind, the judge merely ordered his dad to sign a paper to get visitation back, and it just never got done. So it was back to court. One thing that we THOUGHT we had on our side was the fact that he had made absolutely NO attempt to contact Cheyenne in well over two years. We thought the worst that could happen would be to get 4 or 5 supervised visits, followed by a few unsupervised visits...and then and only then would she have to go and stay overnight. What happened in the courtroom in Rogers City that day still has me baffled beyond belief, and it was one of the most difficult days for all of us. The presiding judge (I will not use his name out of respect for his family, but he is a complete joke and a sorry excuse for a human being.) ordered ONE supervised visit, followed by just picking up where we left off with every other weekend overnight visitations. We were stunned. When Biofat came to pick up Cheyenne for the first visit, I was a wreck. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I ever took medicine to calm me down...and it actually worked.
By this time we were living in Port Huron, and we started driving to over near Flint every other weekend to drop Cheyenne off for visitation. Things seemed to be going well for quite a while, but then something ridiculous happened. We were dropping her off just like every other time in the parking lot of a McDonalds off of I-69. I was giving Cheyenne a good bye hug and started to hand her over to Biofat when something fell out of what I thought was his front pocket. I didn't even bother to look at first, but he seemed to get very uncomfortable so I peeked down and saw 2 or 3 bullets on the ground that had fallen out of his 9 Millimeter handgun that he had stuffed down the front of his pants. At this point, I think I said something like, "What the hell is that for?" He said that he had a CCW and he always carried it for protection. I really didn't know what to say and Holly was just standing still as though she saw a ghost. We literally didn't know what to do because we were so shocked, so we got back into the car to drive away. It was almost like we both realized at the same moment that something was seriously screwed up about this situation, and what happened next was almost like something out of an action movie.
They had driven around in the drive thru while Holly and I were sitting stunned and talking about what to do. Luckily, they must have had a big order because they were told to pull over into a parking space next to the restaurant to wait for their order. Holly and I knew what we needed to do, and we took action. I put the car into drive, not knowing if they had left yet or not. I came around the restaurant and we saw them parked, so I floored it and abruptly stopped directly behind his car so that they couldn't pull away. He got out and asked what we wanted, and I just said (in my biggest badass voice), "Get Cheyenne's bags, she's coming with us." When he asked why, I simply told him that if where he was taking Cheyenne was so dangerous that he needed to be packing heat, she wasn't going to be going with him. Surprisingly, they didn't put up much of a fight and we got Cheyenne in the car and drove back to Port Huron. Little did I know at the time that that would be the last time Cheyenne ever saw him.
Weeks passed. Months passed. Years passed. We still lived in fear of getting that fateful phone call from them, demanding visitation and telling us they were taking us to court. We were prepared, but it didn't ease the tension. I had asked Biofat before to sign off his parental rights and let me adopt, but he would have none of it. We had no idea what would happen next, but all we knew is that we were not about to take her back over there until we were convinced she was safe. Then one day while I was in the teachers lounge at school, I got a phone call from Holly and she uttered the two words that I never wanted to hear her say.
"Biofat called." (OK, she actually used his real name...but you get the picture).
I didn't know what to say...but I think it was something like, "Oh God...now what." Then Holly said the last thing that I expected her to say..."He wants to know if you'll adopt Cheyenne." The rest of the conversation was a bit of a blur at that point, but I do distinctly remember hanging up the phone and starting to sob uncontrollably. I don't know why I reacted that way. I think it was part relief and part overwhelming joy. It didn't take long and it was done. We went to the courthouse in Port Huron and stood in front of Judge Brown, and listened to him happily say that the adoption was complete. Cheyenne's new official name was Cheyenne Lyn Felax. (We changed her middle name to match Holly's for two reasons. One, the other one was given to her by Biofat. And two, Kennedy had been born by this time and we gave her Holly's middle name...so why not all three.)
And now here we are, 13 years later. Cheyenne is a beautiful 8th grader at my school, and she has one of the coolest teachers in the world in her first hour class. Yeah, that would be me. We have been through a lot of ups and downs, highs and lows, but I couldn't be more proud of the young lady she has become. Yeah, she's a little boy crazy. Yeah, she's not crazy about school NEARLY as much as she is about boys. But she's a kind-hearted, vibrant, artistic, and caring young lady that has been through more than any 13 year old should ever go through (more on that later:). She plays basketball and volleyball and she sings in the choir in her school. Yeah, that little two-toothed one year-old has turned out all right...and I'm so proud to be able to call her my daughter.
Until next time....
So after Holly and I have our first date, we eventually start talking more and I start to get to know her more and more. I think I caught her off guard a week or so later when I made a comment about wanting to meet her daughter, Cheyenne (you know...the one that had recently gotten a ridiculous pickle birthday card from some stranger). I think she figured that having a child would scare most guys away, which I'm sure it would, but I accepted from day one that if I chose to pursue this relationship that I would be dating both of them, technically speaking. I still vividly remember the first time I saw Cheyenne. Keep in mind I was a 21 year old college student and the only experience I EVER had with kids was with my nephew Travis, so when this little one year old girl came walking into my parents living room, I really had no idea what to expect. I know my first thought was, "yup, it's a mini Holly". She was wearing the cutest little black and white jacket that was in the pattern of a cow, and I'm pretty sure she only had two teeth. But one thing I can tell you for sure was that she was a beautiful little thing and I was happy to meet her.
The next big hurdle was meeting her dad and the rest of the family. I knew from day one that Louie wasn't crazy about the fact that Holly was seeing me, which made that first meeting even more uncomfortable. The first time I met the family was when I was on my way back to college. My plan was to stop out, say hello, and get the hell out of there as fast as I could. Shortly before I left my parents house, Holly called and asked me if I had any dime rolls. Dime rolls? Why the heck are you asking me if I have any dime rolls? She said that her dad had some dimes that he wanted to roll but he was out of dime rolls. Now...I don't know if this was some sort of "Louie Test" or not, but thankfully my mom had some dime rolls so I could get my first brownie point! When I showed up, I was nervous as hell...more nervous than I'd ever been before to meet anyones parents. I don't remember much from that first meeting because her family doesn't say a whole lot, but I do remember one interaction I had with her dad.
Louie: "Didn't you play baseball?"
Me: "Uh...yeah."
Louie: "That's what I thought. I remember seeing your name in the paper a few times."
Me: "Er...uh...yeah, that was me."
And that was it. I wasn't sure what he was getting at, but in hindsight I think he was just trying to be nice and start a conversation. It was awkward, but I think he was happy that I was from the area and that he already knew my family since he worked with my mom for a few years.
As time went by, our relationship got more and more serious. We had a one minor issue a few months in when Holly pretty much told me that she didn't want to ever see or talk to me again. When I asked her why, she just said, "You talk too much." Not a joke. She literally dumped me because I talked too much. Compared to her however, pretty much everyone talks too much. A couple days later, we reconciled and things were back to...well...normal I guess.
I still had another year of college left, so we carried on a long distance relationship from Posen to Saginaw. It actually worked out nicely since Holly was technically supposed to drive Cheyenne to Standish every other weekend for her biological fathers visitation. So instead, Holly offered to just drive an extra half hour down state and cut down on Biofat's trip. (I don't want to use his name, and Biofat is a nice short name for biological father...I have a lot of other names I'd like to use, but this is a family show.) If it gives you ANY idea of the type of people we were dealing with, when Holly offered to drive an extra half hour to Saginaw to cut down on his trip from Lansing, the first time he said, "No, I want to do what the custody papers say, and they say to meet in Standish." So, Holly just dropped her off in Standish and basically followed them for the next half hour and came to Saginaw.
The experience with Biofat was possibly one of the most difficult things we've ever gone through...and those of you that know us know that this is a BOLD statement. Biofat continuously broke visitations, made excuses, and pretty much acted like the total dick that he was. One visitation VERY early on, he brought a 2-year old Cheyenne back with her ears pierced. Holly promptly took them out and told him that no decisions like that can be made without her approval...and she didn't approve. I had grown very fond and close to Cheyenne, but his continued "on and off" relationship was having a HUGE affect on her. His child support payments were spotty at best, and he never seemed able to make more than a few visitations in a row. Then the shit hit the fan one time when upon returning home after a visitation, Holly saw Cheyenne repeatedly hit herself in the head while in the back seat. Holly asked Cheyenne why she was doing it, and all she said was, "Papa hit me. Head. Papa hit me. Head." Needless to say, we contacted a lawyer and demanded that an investigation be done and we stopped allowing visitation altogether until we were satisfied that she was going into a safe situation.
Not surprisingly, we stopped hearing from Biofat shortly after a court hearing where he represented himself and the judge ordered his dad to sign some "release of information" papers so that they could do a background check on Cheyenne's papa. One of the most ridiculous things about that court hearing was hearing Biofat tell the judge that he thought it was Holly's dad that was abusing Cheyenne. He also said that he witnessed abuse, and when the judge asked what he saw, he said, "I can remember watching Louie give Cheyenne a bath in their washtub." Yeah...apparantly giving a bath in a wash tub is abuse. This is especially comical for anyone that knows Louie. Cheyenne was his first grandchild and they were as close as bark to a tree. He literally did everything with her and would never do anything to harm her. As we speak, they are upstairs at my house watching TV together...13 years later:)
So we stopped hearing from Biofat and we thought that maybe we were done with him, until a horrible day a couple years later when he called and basically accused Holly of denying him his parental rights. Keep in mind, the judge merely ordered his dad to sign a paper to get visitation back, and it just never got done. So it was back to court. One thing that we THOUGHT we had on our side was the fact that he had made absolutely NO attempt to contact Cheyenne in well over two years. We thought the worst that could happen would be to get 4 or 5 supervised visits, followed by a few unsupervised visits...and then and only then would she have to go and stay overnight. What happened in the courtroom in Rogers City that day still has me baffled beyond belief, and it was one of the most difficult days for all of us. The presiding judge (I will not use his name out of respect for his family, but he is a complete joke and a sorry excuse for a human being.) ordered ONE supervised visit, followed by just picking up where we left off with every other weekend overnight visitations. We were stunned. When Biofat came to pick up Cheyenne for the first visit, I was a wreck. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I ever took medicine to calm me down...and it actually worked.
By this time we were living in Port Huron, and we started driving to over near Flint every other weekend to drop Cheyenne off for visitation. Things seemed to be going well for quite a while, but then something ridiculous happened. We were dropping her off just like every other time in the parking lot of a McDonalds off of I-69. I was giving Cheyenne a good bye hug and started to hand her over to Biofat when something fell out of what I thought was his front pocket. I didn't even bother to look at first, but he seemed to get very uncomfortable so I peeked down and saw 2 or 3 bullets on the ground that had fallen out of his 9 Millimeter handgun that he had stuffed down the front of his pants. At this point, I think I said something like, "What the hell is that for?" He said that he had a CCW and he always carried it for protection. I really didn't know what to say and Holly was just standing still as though she saw a ghost. We literally didn't know what to do because we were so shocked, so we got back into the car to drive away. It was almost like we both realized at the same moment that something was seriously screwed up about this situation, and what happened next was almost like something out of an action movie.
They had driven around in the drive thru while Holly and I were sitting stunned and talking about what to do. Luckily, they must have had a big order because they were told to pull over into a parking space next to the restaurant to wait for their order. Holly and I knew what we needed to do, and we took action. I put the car into drive, not knowing if they had left yet or not. I came around the restaurant and we saw them parked, so I floored it and abruptly stopped directly behind his car so that they couldn't pull away. He got out and asked what we wanted, and I just said (in my biggest badass voice), "Get Cheyenne's bags, she's coming with us." When he asked why, I simply told him that if where he was taking Cheyenne was so dangerous that he needed to be packing heat, she wasn't going to be going with him. Surprisingly, they didn't put up much of a fight and we got Cheyenne in the car and drove back to Port Huron. Little did I know at the time that that would be the last time Cheyenne ever saw him.
Weeks passed. Months passed. Years passed. We still lived in fear of getting that fateful phone call from them, demanding visitation and telling us they were taking us to court. We were prepared, but it didn't ease the tension. I had asked Biofat before to sign off his parental rights and let me adopt, but he would have none of it. We had no idea what would happen next, but all we knew is that we were not about to take her back over there until we were convinced she was safe. Then one day while I was in the teachers lounge at school, I got a phone call from Holly and she uttered the two words that I never wanted to hear her say.
"Biofat called." (OK, she actually used his real name...but you get the picture).
I didn't know what to say...but I think it was something like, "Oh God...now what." Then Holly said the last thing that I expected her to say..."He wants to know if you'll adopt Cheyenne." The rest of the conversation was a bit of a blur at that point, but I do distinctly remember hanging up the phone and starting to sob uncontrollably. I don't know why I reacted that way. I think it was part relief and part overwhelming joy. It didn't take long and it was done. We went to the courthouse in Port Huron and stood in front of Judge Brown, and listened to him happily say that the adoption was complete. Cheyenne's new official name was Cheyenne Lyn Felax. (We changed her middle name to match Holly's for two reasons. One, the other one was given to her by Biofat. And two, Kennedy had been born by this time and we gave her Holly's middle name...so why not all three.)
And now here we are, 13 years later. Cheyenne is a beautiful 8th grader at my school, and she has one of the coolest teachers in the world in her first hour class. Yeah, that would be me. We have been through a lot of ups and downs, highs and lows, but I couldn't be more proud of the young lady she has become. Yeah, she's a little boy crazy. Yeah, she's not crazy about school NEARLY as much as she is about boys. But she's a kind-hearted, vibrant, artistic, and caring young lady that has been through more than any 13 year old should ever go through (more on that later:). She plays basketball and volleyball and she sings in the choir in her school. Yeah, that little two-toothed one year-old has turned out all right...and I'm so proud to be able to call her my daughter.
Until next time....
Saturday, December 24, 2011
The birthday card worked...now what?
So the crazy idea that Critch and I (and some help from Bob Paschke...not the sheriff Bob Paschke...his younger, irresponsible, drunkard of a son Bob Paschke) hatched shortly after New Years 1999 actually worked! I got a phone call from Holly, and even though it was possibly the most awkward phone call I've ever gotten, she agreed to at least let me take her to the movies. Now there was a little problem...ok, a big problem. Holly was technically still married, although the divorce was definitely going to happen. At this point, I should probably fill you in on at least the basics of her marriage. I'm not going to go into details, but lets just say it was very short and very tumultuous. I'll leave details out for the sake of Holly, but let's just say that the fact that she left the relationship when she did has always been something that I have admired about her. Many women will remain in awful situations with the belief that "it will get better", but not Holly. As soon as things went from bad to crazy, it was f*&% this s*&%, I'm out of here!"
Well, let's just say that Holly's dad wasn't crazy about the idea of another guy coming into her life right away, and I really can't blame him. I still distinctly remember many of our first phone calls and Holly telling me that she was hiding in her entry way of her front porch so that her dad couldn't hear her. I even remember one time hearing him open the door and say something to the effect of, "Is that a guy?". When Holly said it was, his response was not something that a guy wants to hear from any girls dad. I'll paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of, "Yeah, that's all you need. More bullshit in your life from a guy." Sweet. The amazing thing in retrospect is that EVERYTHING about the situation was screaming "RUN FELAX RUN!!". Still married...has a kid...angry dad...and Holly's warning to me herself that night at Greka's. She actually said to me, "you don't want anything to do with me...I'm crazy." I laughed and thought she was messing around. Nope, she was dead ass serious.
But I didn't run. Everything just seemed to add up in my mind. That night on New Years Eve, the phone calls, the pickle card...everything just added up. As a matter of fact, I found out through our conversations on the phone that we even had a run-in with one another just a few days before New Year's Eve. Why didn't I KNOW that we had a run-in, you ask? Well, the story goes something like this.
A few nights before New Years Eve, I was out with a few of my friends. I know Glen Curtis and Matt Schalk were two of them, but the other ones escape me for some reason. So we are out...well...having fun like we seemed to be always doing at that point in our lives, and it's snowing like hell. We are on our way to Metz Lounge (yep, here comes another "Holla!" from my Rogers City peeps) when the car we are in somehow finds it's way into a ditch. Imagine that. To be bluntly honest, I actually think we ended up in the ditch because the driver (I won't mention who it was) actually swerved for a deer. Now, when I say "swerved for a deer", you're probably thinking that I mean that he swerved to MISS a deer. Well, not on this night. As we approached the deer and started slowing down, we all started prodding our driver to speed up and hit it. I remember someone yelling something to the effect of, "Get it...that's good meat!" I really didn't think he'd do it, but the next think I know, the pedal is to the medal and we were barrelling toward the deer head on. Something tells me we hit it, but not hard enough to do a damn thing to it. Problem was, we ended up in the ditch. So at this point, we don't know what to do, so we start to walk toward the nearest house which was just up the road a bit. But right as we start walking, to our astonishment, we see headlights coming down the road. Salvation! Someone to tow us out or at least give us a ride! We start waving our hands frantically, but the damn gray Buick just drives right past us...and I distinctly remember flipping the bird as it drove out of sight. Who was driving that car, you ask? Yup, I was flipping off my future wife.
I don't know how it came up in our conversations, but it was indeed Holly that drove past us that night. When I asked why the hell she didn't stop and help us in the driving snow storm, her reply was something like, "Why the hell would I stop for five idiots who just put their car in the ditch. I assumed you were drunk and stupid, and I was on my way home from work so the last thing I wanted to do was stop and help." Touche. Well, we eventually got to the house up the road and woke up an old man wearing the saggiest whitey tighties I've ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes on, but he had a four wheel drive. We thought he was doing us a good deed, but ended up making us pay him for his time. Grumpy old shit.
So Holly and I finally decide that our first date would be a movie. And she also decided that she was going to have to lie to her dad about it. "Just a night out with the girls, Dad!" So I come home from college one weekend and of course, I can't come and pick her up, so we have to meet somewhere and drive to the movies in Alpena together. At this point, I need to explain to people from "down state" why we had to do this. You see, up in Rogers City, if you want to see a movie you've got to drive to Alpena, which is about a half hour away. Rogers City had a theatre at the time, but they seemed to be WAY behind the time as far as what movies they were showing. As a matter of fact, I think the folks up in Rogers City are talking about this new "E.T." movie that is coming out. (Just kidding Rogers City folks...sort of). We decide to meet at the Posen Junction, which you only know about if you are from "up north". When we meet, being the gentleman that I am, I thought it would only be prudent to be the one to drive since I was the guy and all. Well, in hindsight, it was a pretty stupid idea since I had no muffler on my car. You see, Holly isn't one for holding her feelings in so much. Even though we were on our first date and really didn't know each other all that well, I remember he basically telling me how much of a dipshit I was for driving around in a car without a muffler. It was loud and it smelled horribly, so once again I could see her point. (I'd like to think the horrible smell had something to do with the muffler, but it probably had more to do with the fact that I hadn't cleaned the interior of my car in six months)
So we tool over to Alpena and see "Patch Adams"...some supposedly true story about a whack job doctor, played by the king of the whack jobs, Robin Williams. When the movie is over, I think now is the time to turn on the romance. Candle lit dinner? No. Walk by the beach? It was winter...hell no. Burger King drive-thru? Count me in! So we order our romantic drive thru meal and head back toward the Posen Junction. At this point I have no idea how the date is going. Holly doesn't say a whole lot, but I'm convinced that on the way home I made a HUGE mistake. It was a mistake that to this day makes me laugh. When I finished eating as much of my delicious double cheeseburger as I can (I say I ate about 3/4 of it, Holly says it was more like 1/2), I roll my window down and chuck it out the window so that some unfortunate woodland creature can end up with heartburn right along with me on this night. But almost immediately, I hear little miss quiet yell out, "What did you do that for?!? I could have taken that home and gave it to the chickens!" Gave it to the chickens? Really? At first I thought she was joking, but I soon realized she wasn't. She was the daughter of a farmer, and NOTHING ever went to waste. I was completely taken aback, but I just chalked it up to a lesson learned.
I dropped her off into her much quieter and less smelly car and we were on our way...a first date for the ages had come to an end, and at this point I had no idea where I stood. All I knew was that she didn't say a whole lot, and when she did, it was usually to give me some shit. So yeah, she was exactly like I remember from high school. But for some reason I still didn't run. There was something that drew me to her. I know I admired her strength and her sense of humor the most, and she seemed to have her priorities exactly where they should be. She made it CLEAR to me that priority number one was Cheyenne and I assumed that I was pretty far down on the list...as I should be.
When I returned to college a couple days later, I remember telling my roommates that I thought I would marry Holly. "After one date? You're an idiot." Probably so, but something was telling me otherwise. One thing I know for sure...it was NOT an easy path, but it was a path worth taking.
Until next time....
Well, let's just say that Holly's dad wasn't crazy about the idea of another guy coming into her life right away, and I really can't blame him. I still distinctly remember many of our first phone calls and Holly telling me that she was hiding in her entry way of her front porch so that her dad couldn't hear her. I even remember one time hearing him open the door and say something to the effect of, "Is that a guy?". When Holly said it was, his response was not something that a guy wants to hear from any girls dad. I'll paraphrase, but it was something to the effect of, "Yeah, that's all you need. More bullshit in your life from a guy." Sweet. The amazing thing in retrospect is that EVERYTHING about the situation was screaming "RUN FELAX RUN!!". Still married...has a kid...angry dad...and Holly's warning to me herself that night at Greka's. She actually said to me, "you don't want anything to do with me...I'm crazy." I laughed and thought she was messing around. Nope, she was dead ass serious.
But I didn't run. Everything just seemed to add up in my mind. That night on New Years Eve, the phone calls, the pickle card...everything just added up. As a matter of fact, I found out through our conversations on the phone that we even had a run-in with one another just a few days before New Year's Eve. Why didn't I KNOW that we had a run-in, you ask? Well, the story goes something like this.
A few nights before New Years Eve, I was out with a few of my friends. I know Glen Curtis and Matt Schalk were two of them, but the other ones escape me for some reason. So we are out...well...having fun like we seemed to be always doing at that point in our lives, and it's snowing like hell. We are on our way to Metz Lounge (yep, here comes another "Holla!" from my Rogers City peeps) when the car we are in somehow finds it's way into a ditch. Imagine that. To be bluntly honest, I actually think we ended up in the ditch because the driver (I won't mention who it was) actually swerved for a deer. Now, when I say "swerved for a deer", you're probably thinking that I mean that he swerved to MISS a deer. Well, not on this night. As we approached the deer and started slowing down, we all started prodding our driver to speed up and hit it. I remember someone yelling something to the effect of, "Get it...that's good meat!" I really didn't think he'd do it, but the next think I know, the pedal is to the medal and we were barrelling toward the deer head on. Something tells me we hit it, but not hard enough to do a damn thing to it. Problem was, we ended up in the ditch. So at this point, we don't know what to do, so we start to walk toward the nearest house which was just up the road a bit. But right as we start walking, to our astonishment, we see headlights coming down the road. Salvation! Someone to tow us out or at least give us a ride! We start waving our hands frantically, but the damn gray Buick just drives right past us...and I distinctly remember flipping the bird as it drove out of sight. Who was driving that car, you ask? Yup, I was flipping off my future wife.
I don't know how it came up in our conversations, but it was indeed Holly that drove past us that night. When I asked why the hell she didn't stop and help us in the driving snow storm, her reply was something like, "Why the hell would I stop for five idiots who just put their car in the ditch. I assumed you were drunk and stupid, and I was on my way home from work so the last thing I wanted to do was stop and help." Touche. Well, we eventually got to the house up the road and woke up an old man wearing the saggiest whitey tighties I've ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes on, but he had a four wheel drive. We thought he was doing us a good deed, but ended up making us pay him for his time. Grumpy old shit.
So Holly and I finally decide that our first date would be a movie. And she also decided that she was going to have to lie to her dad about it. "Just a night out with the girls, Dad!" So I come home from college one weekend and of course, I can't come and pick her up, so we have to meet somewhere and drive to the movies in Alpena together. At this point, I need to explain to people from "down state" why we had to do this. You see, up in Rogers City, if you want to see a movie you've got to drive to Alpena, which is about a half hour away. Rogers City had a theatre at the time, but they seemed to be WAY behind the time as far as what movies they were showing. As a matter of fact, I think the folks up in Rogers City are talking about this new "E.T." movie that is coming out. (Just kidding Rogers City folks...sort of). We decide to meet at the Posen Junction, which you only know about if you are from "up north". When we meet, being the gentleman that I am, I thought it would only be prudent to be the one to drive since I was the guy and all. Well, in hindsight, it was a pretty stupid idea since I had no muffler on my car. You see, Holly isn't one for holding her feelings in so much. Even though we were on our first date and really didn't know each other all that well, I remember he basically telling me how much of a dipshit I was for driving around in a car without a muffler. It was loud and it smelled horribly, so once again I could see her point. (I'd like to think the horrible smell had something to do with the muffler, but it probably had more to do with the fact that I hadn't cleaned the interior of my car in six months)
So we tool over to Alpena and see "Patch Adams"...some supposedly true story about a whack job doctor, played by the king of the whack jobs, Robin Williams. When the movie is over, I think now is the time to turn on the romance. Candle lit dinner? No. Walk by the beach? It was winter...hell no. Burger King drive-thru? Count me in! So we order our romantic drive thru meal and head back toward the Posen Junction. At this point I have no idea how the date is going. Holly doesn't say a whole lot, but I'm convinced that on the way home I made a HUGE mistake. It was a mistake that to this day makes me laugh. When I finished eating as much of my delicious double cheeseburger as I can (I say I ate about 3/4 of it, Holly says it was more like 1/2), I roll my window down and chuck it out the window so that some unfortunate woodland creature can end up with heartburn right along with me on this night. But almost immediately, I hear little miss quiet yell out, "What did you do that for?!? I could have taken that home and gave it to the chickens!" Gave it to the chickens? Really? At first I thought she was joking, but I soon realized she wasn't. She was the daughter of a farmer, and NOTHING ever went to waste. I was completely taken aback, but I just chalked it up to a lesson learned.
I dropped her off into her much quieter and less smelly car and we were on our way...a first date for the ages had come to an end, and at this point I had no idea where I stood. All I knew was that she didn't say a whole lot, and when she did, it was usually to give me some shit. So yeah, she was exactly like I remember from high school. But for some reason I still didn't run. There was something that drew me to her. I know I admired her strength and her sense of humor the most, and she seemed to have her priorities exactly where they should be. She made it CLEAR to me that priority number one was Cheyenne and I assumed that I was pretty far down on the list...as I should be.
When I returned to college a couple days later, I remember telling my roommates that I thought I would marry Holly. "After one date? You're an idiot." Probably so, but something was telling me otherwise. One thing I know for sure...it was NOT an easy path, but it was a path worth taking.
Until next time....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)