Not Quite What Was Expected

Hi Family and Friends,

I know that this is a long time in coming.

See, each time I wanted to write something, we hit another bump in the road.
After he was discharged from Northwestern Hospital the first time, Dan still had a surgical drain draining his abscess.  It was removed 6 days after being put in and that was just a wee bit too soon.  We ended up back in the hospital.  He was readmitted for a few days while they put him on more antibiotics and re-implanted a surgical drain.  He was supposed to start a new job this week.  Thankfully, they said he could delay until he was better.  He started the following week.

Things seemed to be 'OK' for a bit and then he started experiencing new symptoms.  We travelled back to the ER and he was readmitted for a few days.  He was diagnosed with a antibiotic resistant urinary tract infection.  The doctors assumed that it was irritations from the abscess rubbing and pressing on his bladder.  He was discharged a with a new round of 'killer' antibiotics.

He was given the go ahead to not refill his antibiotic as the abscess was clearing fantastically.  A few days later he was back in the ER.  Luckily, he was not admitted this time.  (I did pack an over-night bag just in case - we actually have one on hand at this point.)  He was given a new round of even more potent antibiotics and we left.  A week later the hospital called and wanted him to be readmitted.  He would need IV antibiotics.  His Super Bug was stumping them.

After a few more days in the hospital, he had his surgical drain removed and a PIC implanted.  The PIC was so that he could be released and we could do IV antibiotics at home.  He was discharged and the following day a nurse came to the house to show us how to administer IV antibiotics at  home.  She stressed keeping the port clean and swabbing it with alcohol whenever it touched anything and she stressed how important it was to not have any air bubbles in the lines.  The PIC lead straight to his heart and air bubbles would be 'BAD.'

I am happy to announce - Dan is killer bacteria free, abscess free, drain free, PIC free and finally has an appetite.

It was a long post to get to my point.  My point is: sometimes things don't happen quite how you expect them to.  Long before this all happened, we did go see a judge.  We did it right before we left for Punta Cana.  We wanted our marriage papers to be in English (and a few other reasons.)  We did not expect to ever celebrate this day as our Marriage as we wanted the day that we shared with our family and friends to be "The Day."  We weren't really trying to hide it but we weren't really broadcasting it either.  In the long run, it was the most unexpectedly fortunate thing we could have done to prep for what was in our near future.

I don't know what will happen in the following weeks or months.

We expected to get married in Punta Cana.  Dan expected to start a new job right away.  We expected to see my mom and Dave around Thanksgiving.  We expected to go see Dan's family (especially his sister, Amy, and her new baby, Annalise) for Christmas.

Life is what happens when you are expecting something else to happen.  Be thankful for the small miracles that give you what you need for those times when life hands you something that is "not quite what was expected."