2008- Year in Review

I got to thinking that I should do some kind of year in review post, so here goes. This will probably be long, so bear with me!

January- Josh recovered from his hospitalization due to his Crohn's Disease that had happened in December. More on that later. My parents came to visit from WI and we started house hunting. Looked at like 12 houses one Sunday, and decided to buy this one: We love it :)

February- Packed up our apartment and moved into the house. Thats about it. It was kind of a whirlwind, actually. We closed like 20 days after we made the offer, so it went pretty quick. It was so nice to get into the house and have more space. The apartment we were living in was very small.

March- I took my first trip to Texas! I had a work conference in Austin at The Four Seasons. It was pretty swanky. Oh, and John McCain was holding a fundraiser there so I caught a glimpse of him. When I got home, it was late and Josh was in bed. However, I was warmly greeted at the door by the newest member of the family, Mason:

We had picked him out before I left but there was a couple days waiting period for the shelter to check us out and approve our application. There were a few tense days with our other two cats Jasmine and Ariel, but evenually the girls gave in and now the kitties all love each other.

April- Josh continued to struggle with his Crohn's disease. He spent 3 nights in the hospital in April due to a Crohn's flare up. Basically, they keep him there to keep him hydrated and so they can keep an eye on him. They also discovered that he had developed an umbilical hernia and he ended up having laproscopic surgery late in the month to correct it. Little did we know then that it would be the first of six surgeries he would endure in 2008.

May-After spending most of the first part of the year having countless flare ups and basically being miserably sick 70 or 80 percent of the time, Josh went to visit his GI doctor to find out what was going on with his Crohn's. She gave us the bad news that it appeared that the medications he was taking, which she refered to as the "biggest guns" they have to fight Crohn's didn't appear to be working anymore that that we needed to consider either surgery to remove the part of his intestine that was inflamed, or consider enrolling him in experimental drug trials.

We talked a lot about how he should proceed. Surgery is usually a last alternative for Crohn's because you only have a limited amount of intestines, and the Crohn's almost always comes back. However, we decided that we were not terribly comfortable with him being a "lab rat" and that we didn't really want to mess around with experimental drugs. So, we decided to go ahead and schedule him for surgery. When we went to see his surgeon, she took one look at his CT scan from the last hospital stay and proceeded to re-arrange her schedule to fit him in the following day. Taking him to the hospital that day was so scary. I remember crying in the shower that morning- I guess I didn't want him to see me cry because I wanted to be strong for him, but it felt so scary.

The initial surgery went well. She came out when it was over and said that they had removed about 7 inches of his intestine that was "full of scar tissue" which explained why the medications were not working for his Crohn's. She said that she expected that he would be there for about a week recovering and then life should get back to normal.

He woke up later that day and was pretty sore. The pain seemed to get better as the days went on, but he was not making any progress in terms of his bowels starting to work again. They would not release him from the hospital until he was regularly passing gas and having bowel movements.

June- We continued to sit and wait at the hospital. He got a little bit more frustrated every day, but there was literally nothing we could do. They would start him on a liquid diet, then his abdomen would get all distended and full of gas, and he would start getting sick. Then they would have to stick a tube down his nose, called an NG Tube to relieve the pressure. He hated that tube more than anything, so it really started to get miserable.

My 30th birthday was on June 7th. I had planned to travel home to WI to celebrate with my friends and family, because he was initially supposed to be home earlier that week. However, I put my birthday plans on the back burner so that I could be there with him at the hospital and support him.

He had one really bad night where the pain was the worst he had ever had in his life. On a scale of 1-10 he said it was a 20. They brought an x-ray machine to his room and his Dr. determined that it was the gas, finally moving which she took to be a good sign. They pumped him up full of pain meds so that he could rest comfortably. That was the hardest night- to see him in that kind of pain and be completely helpless to do anything about it broke my heart.

The next night he asked me to marry him. It was so sweet. Of course, I said yes. Now we are getting married THIS YEAR! YAY. Ok, now back to the story:

After 2.5 weeks the doctor became worried that he was suffering from a perforated bowel and what amounted to emergency surgery was done very late on Sunday, June 15th. During this surgery, his doctor discovered that a fistula had formed in his bowel and gave him two ileostomy bags. He was temporarily closed up to make sure that the ileosotmy would work, and then had another surgery on Thursday, June 19th to move the stoma’s to their more permanent location and to close the incision. He finally left the hospital on Monday, June 23rd.

His recovery was very slow. Due to the nature of his incision, the skin was not stapled shut which caused movement to be very painful. Life with the ostomy bags was no picnic either.

July- July was spent just slowly recovering. We had some good friends over for the 4th and that was really nice. We discovered that the people in this neighborhood love the 4th and there were tons of fireworks being shot off all around the house. It was great! We also started to focus on some details for the wedding. We decided on June 27, 2009 as the date, and chose our venue. Here are some pics from when we went to see the place- it is a really great space.

We also picked out the rings.... Here's mine:

Finally, we spent some time working on our yard. Our house is new, so the yard was just seeded this year. Acutally, they seeded it the day of his first surgery in May. Luckily, we had a very hot, very wet June, so the grass came in really nicely and I never had to worry about watering it. We really lucked out there. Here are some pics of the flower beds we put in:

August- I went home to WI the first week in August. It was the first time since I moved here in September 2007 that I had been home for more than a few days at a time. It was so nice to spend time with my family and see my friends. We had some good times!

Finally, I found a salon in Fort Wayne that I love and got a kickass new haircut! Josh went back to work on August 11. His job is pretty physical in nature, and even with the restrictions he had, work was very difficult. In addition to that, he had developed a prolapsed stoma, which frequently caused him to feel sick. After a few trips to the Emergency Room because he wasn’t feeling well and was worried about the prolapsed stoma, his Doctor scheduled surgery for Thursday, August 28th to takedown the two ostomy’s that he had.

The surgery on August 28th went well. Like his first bowel surgery, his body seemed to heal, but again my bowl wouldn’t start. I couldn't believe that after everything that had happened that we were back to this same waiting game. I was so scared about what would happen.

September- On Wednesday, September 9th, Josh had yet another surgery to remove scar tissue that had formed over where the initial bowel resection was done. After this surgery, his bowel finally started working on its own. After 5 surgeries in 3 months, he was able to eat and have bowel movements regularly. He was released from the hospital on Tuesday, September 9th. We spent the rest of the month just relaxaing at home and enjoying the rest of the summer and fall.

My cousin Nicole got married at the end of the summer in Wisconsin, so we traveled home for that. I was a bridesmad and my brother Jason was an usher. It was a really nice wedding and nice to see my family. Josh was well enough to come with me- I was so happy to have him there.

October- Josh went back to work. It was rough, but he is managing. We didn't do much in October. I started studying for the CMA exam, which took up most of my free time in October and November. Pretty boring, LOL.

November- Josh continued to recover, I continued to study for the CMA exam, and I bitched about it every chance I got LOL. I did take a break from studying in order to travel to Puerto Rico, for a 1/2 vacation, 1/2 work thing. It was great. Take a look at some of the pics here. While in PR, I injured my knee and almost drowned. My Dr. initially thought that I might have torn my meniscus, but an MRI revealed that there was no major damage, which was good. Last thing I need is to have surgery.

We decided to stay in Fort Wayne for Thanksgiving since Josh had to work the day after (damn retail job.) Our friends Josh and Emily came over and we all pitched in different parts of the dinner. I made my first Turkey! It turned out so well! I didn't take any pics, but this is the recipe I used, and it was awesome. I also made Twice Baked Potato Casserole ala Emeril, and it was fantistic. Josh doesn't like regular mashed potatoes, so I wanted to mix it up for him. It was a hit! I felt like I spent about 7 hours in the kitchen that day, but it was worth it. It was such a great day!

My mom and I always go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving, so I missed that this year. We did shop online together that morning though LOL. It was funny to be shopping online and IMing back and forth about the deals we found.

December- December was a whirlwind of travel! We travelled to Pittsburgh the first weekend of the month. It was nice to visit with his family, and we hung out with his Dad and his Dad's buddies to watch the Steelers game that week, which was an experience. I thought Packers fans were hard core, but I think these guys might be more devout, LOL. The day after we got back, I took the CMA exam, and PASSED! YAY! The next weekend, I travelled to Chicago to visit with some friends from back home. I won tickets for my comanies box at Lucas Oil Field for a Colts game the next weekend, so we traveled to Indianapolis for that.

Then I went home for a few days at Chrismas. I had a really nice time with my family. Josh had to work on Christmas eve, so he couldn't come with, but I headed back to Fort Wayne early on Christmas day so we could spend the day together.

We had a lot of fun decorating the house for Christmas. Here are some pics:

And thats about it. It was a long, crazy, difficult year. But, we got through it together. And, I think that all of the things we went through have just made us stronger.

We have so much to be thankful for. And, we are really looking forward to this next, big year. It will be the year we get married, the year we travel to Hawaii for the first time, and hopefully the year for a few other firsts for us :)

Happy New Year!