Day –5: So You Lost Your Trust and You Never Should Have… You Never Should Have

 

Day –6 (Saturday 2/6/11) was an open invite to the people in my life to spend some time with me and give me one last gasp of normalcy before I’m committed to the clink for the next several weeks.  The outpouring of goodwill from people was absolutely amazing!  I was a little nervous at first since the invitation extended from 9:00am and no one had showed up around 11:00.  I was getting a little sad when my phone rang with a specific ringtone.  Why was my phone playing Don’t Stop Believin?  It was my boss calling!  I couldn’t believe it.  Brian had drove all the way up from wherever his mansion is in south central Jersey and came to slum with us plebeians to see his loyal servant off.  I can’t tell you how great that felt.  How many people have a boss that drive that far just to spend some time with an employee that hasn’t been to work in 2 months?!?

For then on it was wave after wave of friends that came in to spend time.  Some family friends showed up.  It was absolutely fantastic.  The best part?  It felt normal.  When my friends Dirty and Mike (who came with his wonderful mother) show up, we sat around and BSed just like we did at work.  Nobody bothered to ask too many questions about the procedure happening on Day 0, they were too busy thinking about who’s going to win the Super Bowl and whether or not Ronnie and Sammy were REALLY going to break up this time (Anita thinks they’re done…. What a fool). 

While we were discussing the intellectual merits of GTL, my sister showed up with her kids and then the real fun started.  Between teasing Ella and chasing Cameron, I felt so good (and so tired) by 4.  But the kids weren’t even the best part.  Not by a long shot.  As most of you know, my choice of food is going to be severely restricted so my sister/BIL were kind enough to bring these most delicious crab cakes in so that we could share them for dinner.  The kids were wonderfully exhausting and the crab cakes were sensational.

As if that wasn’t enough, around eight and nine respectively, The Georges and the Figurellis showed up and this was the breath of normalcy that I needed.  Since we’d already been through the melodrama of explaining everything going on and we just got to hang out.  It was just sitting around bullshitting and it was everything I wanted it to be.  By the end of the night, we just watched TV and hung out.  Nothing grand.  Just a set of friends hanging out.  It was exactly what I needed.

Some of our family friends came over as well and it was good.  The whole day was perfect.  Filled with friends, family, and great food.  The day was more than I could’ve asked for.

PS – I got the best gift from Chrissy!  But unfortunately you can’t know what it is unless you come and visit me here at the hospital!  }o-)

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Day –5 (2/6/11) aka Super Bowl Sunday was filled with some good old clean family fun and hectic-ness.  I was woken up in the morning with some delicious McDonald’s breakfast while Anita was woken up by two children jumping on top of her.  We spent the next few hours finishing packing.  I kept myself busy picking out DVDs to take with me.

I was called by the hospital at around 11:00 to confirm that I was going through with the admission to the hospital that evening.  I asked what time it would be and she said that the Rhoads Pavilion was expecting my bed to be ready by 8:00.  They were really expecting me to miss the Super Bowl to check into the hospital.  It’s like they don’t’ know me at all.

We went down to my sister’s house so that we could be close by when we got the call.  We were all watching the Super Bowl/getting everything ready when my phone rings and of course… my bed is ready @ 7:00.  I turned around immediately and asked her if I can get there between 9:30 and 10:00.  Of course, we get there @ 10:30 after we stopped by at McDonald’ s for my last double cheeseburger for many months.  We whizzed up to the Rhoads Pavilion and boom. 

Our Journey begins.