Long time no post....

Hello everyone!!! Let me start by saying, I apologize that I've neglected to post for a while. My normal everyday chaos went into overdrive, and I just didn't keep up. Now that I'm back, I will do what I always do and fill you in on what's been going on...

We sailed through deployment with surprisingly few "catastrophes" this time. I'm either used to it and handling them with more ease, or it really was smoother this time. Thank goodness for Skype!! The internet in Iraq is less than ideal, but Skype did allow me to see and talk to my husband every day. The time difference made things interesting, but we adjusted...well, I adjusted, and it worked out fine. He would call every morning on Skype to talk to the kids before they went to school, then I would stay up until the wee hours of the morning waiting for him to call me when he was off duty. Compare it to having a new born baby...you adapt to a different sleep pattern and it gets to be no big deal! So I highly recommend getting a laptop or netbook with a camera on it if you have someone deploying...they appreciate being able to see you as much as you love seeing them! I liked to "see" him because I knew if anything was wrong by looking at him...just talking on the phone you can't always get the full effect of what may or may not be happening.

The day they returned home my dad was very sick. We had been dealing with health problems with him for roughly 4 years and it was looking like he was going back to the hospital. So, I was a bit preoccupied that day. I remember a woman from the USO coming up to me at the welcome reception and saying "You are so calm." I told her that I just roll with the flow...it's all you can do. When we got word that their plane was coming in I don't know that I was "calm" anymore. I'd never been so excited to see one of those ugly grey planes in my life. When he stepped off that plane I nearly tackled him! I felt this huge sense of relief that now I didn't have to do this all on my own anymore.

My dad did end up in the hospital, but it was so wonderful to have my husband physically present to help me through it. The doctors did not expect my dad to make it. They obviously had never met my dad...retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. He fights and does not just give up. It took a long time but he amazed them and came home. He ended up doing better than he had done in years!! He had an amazing 4 months. Then July rolled around....

We watched my dad start to slowly decline for about 3 weeks. We knew it was different than all the times before. We had been dealing with heart, lung, and kidney problems for 4 years. He was on dialysis and oxygen at home as a matter of fact. This time though his problems seemed different. Mom and I kept saying we felt like we were missing a piece to the puzzle. We tried and tried to get him to the doctor and he would have none of it. Finally, on 13 July 2010, we had convinced him to go to the doctor, but he couldn't make it. Mom called an ambulance and we were all off to the hospital. They thought he had a stroke, but he didn't. Then the blood work started coming back. EVERYTHING was off...and way to low. So, he was admitted and he started getting blood and platelets. It didn't work. The next day we stayed at the hospital all day. After getting home we were called to come back. Dad had a bad nose bleed and they couldn't stop it. He was, as they put it, in "very critical condition". They managed to stop it, but the situation had taken a very serious turn. The following day they did a bone marrow biopsy. We got the results back on Friday, 16 July 2010. My dad had Burkitt Lymphoma. It is very aggressive and he'd only had it for a month, which is exactly how long he'd been going down hill. The oncologist said "the best case scenerio is tragic" and recommended hospice. They didn't know how he was still alive because his bone marrow looked like "post-mortem" bone marrow. My dad, the strongest, toughest man I knew...the man who could beat anything, was not going to beat this. On Saturday my mom decided to put him in a hospice room so we could be in there all night. (We had been sleeping in the waiting room because he was in ICU). The kidney doctor said we had to stop dialysis because fluid was going to accumulate in his lungs and he would essentially drown. We've been told since he started dialysis that he could only go one day without it, so this was a huge and devestating blow to me. We spent the night Saturday night with him. Me, my husband, my oldest son and my mom watched my dad fight with everything he had to stay with us. Sadly, at 10:05 the next morning he lost his fight. He died in my arms with his head lying on my chest.

I've talked about being tough and strong as a military wife. None of that helped me with that loss. It is going on 3 months now, and I'm still not over it. I would like to tell you though, that being a military wife meant more to me through that time and the times to come afterward, than I could ever express. As soon as they heard what was going on at the base my husband began getting calls. They had given him as much leave as he needed, without him even asking. He was at the hospital every day, he was off through the funeral and about a week after. People he worked with watched our younger kids so we could stay at the hospital. They wanted to bring us food at the hospital, they just wanted to do anything to make it easier for us and for my mom. When my dad died, they all jumped into action. We of course got flowers...but it was so much more. My dad was being taken from Illinois back to Oklahoma (where my family is from) to be buried at Fort Gibson National Cemetery. His blues were cleaned and my husband made sure they were perfectly put on him down to the finest detail. The people from his unit showed up at 4:30 in the morning, in their blues, to move my dad from the funeral home to the hearse headed for the airport. They gave him a final salute, and sent him off with honor. They made sure he had full military honors at the cemetery in Oklahoma. They had connections down there and made sure everything my dad deserved was done. They sent flowers to the funeral home in Oklahoma, and cards to my mom. You don't know what that meant to us.

Say what you want about the military, but we are a family.

Now I am back in college. I'm going to go to med school, for oncology. I couldn't save my dad, but maybe I can help someone else. I'm getting "A"s, and I'm doing it for my dad.

So, as you can probably see, now I'm a mother of 3, Air Force wife, college student and trying to adjust to life without my dad. I've been busy! I try to be there for my mom because August would have been their 56th anniversary. She can't adjust. She tried telling herself that this was dad's final "PCS", but that only worked for so long. She told herself she'd been on her own a lot throughout his military career, but this is different. This time he isn't coming back.

I'd like to close by saying...I'm sorry for rambling on about my dad. I told that story in hopes that you would see just how wonderful being a part of the military could be. Sure, it has it's ups and downs...what in life doesn't? But when one of you are down and your military family rallies around you to help...it makes all the other stuff not seem so bad. We have amazing friends through the Air Force. I know there is nothing they wouldn't do for me. What really went a long way though was the response of leadership. They made sure things were handled so I could have my husband with me as long as I needed to, and they never pressured him about when he needed to come back. Any sacrifices I make for my husband to serve in the Air Force are more than worth it, think about the sacrifices they make for us every single day.