ANSWERS TO ALL OF YOUR PRESSING QUESTIONS ABOUT REN

Some of you have asked how Ren is doing, which made me realize it’s been awhile since I’ve written a proper update. So, now I present to you, ANSWERS TO ALL OF YOUR PRESSING QUESTIONS ABOUT REN: 

Answer #1: First, and most importantly, vacuuming is still Ren’s life source. Or should I say life force?! I guess it’s probably both. The kids know if dad is vacuuming, all is well with the world, and if he’s not, well, something’s off. Some of you may call that an obsession. I call it the world’s easiest way to know if your spouse is feeling ok physically and mentally. And, I can tell you, Ren is feeling fine!

I’m not sure how SHIRO feels about Ren’s vacuuming habit, but I’ve got to admit, I’m a huge fan of the reduction in dog hair around the house. Given the fact that she dutifully comes and lies down next to him when he grabs the vacuum and the bag of dog treats, I’ve got to believe she doesn’t mind it too much!

Have I ever told you how good Ren is at getting animals to do what he wants them to do? Are we the only family with a cat that knows how to beg for food?

Answer #2: The spine is still in one piece. Well, actually, it’s in a lot of pieces, including a not insignificant quantity of extra titanium pieces! But, for now, the pieces are all where they belong. In fact, they’ve been in the right place for TWO WHOLE YEARS, which, trust me, in the world of spine surgeries feels like a blessed eternity. 

X-ray from Ren’s 2-year follow up appointment

We know that one day it is likely that what remains un-fused may go south like the rest of the spine did, but that day is not today. And, Ren is tremendously adept at making things work with the spine he has. The man has more overall flexibility than I do (darn him!), and aside from a few notable (and entertaining) exceptions (like swimming and being able to get himself out of a deep chair…and, oh yeah, the alpine slide), you would never know he’s had seven spine surgeries!

Answer #3: Ren’s playbook of luuuuv, a lifelong go-to source. How do I know he loves me? He makes my tea and picks up the dog poop. When it comes to words, though, his skills are less developed. I’ve been working on a translation guide:

Standard Japanese  /  Ren’s Japanese

 

Hello? (On the phone) / uhn

Welcome home (when I get home from work) / uhn

How was your day? / (silence)

Yes. (In response to a question, even if it’s not a yes-no question) / uhn

I read somewhere that the average number of words exchanged between a married Japanese couple in a day is well below 100 words. I don’t know if that’s true, and I can’t remember the exact number. I just remember thinking it was shockingly low. But then I started noticing how many words Ren actually says in a day. Many people say that a healthy relationship in Japan is one that requires few words. Lucky for us, then!!

Donate Now!

We Haven’t Had Spine Issues for a Whole Year, and I’m Pretty Sure That Triggered the Plague

One year ago today, Ren had what we hope will be his last spine surgery.* He woke up from the hours of pre-op, operation, and recovery,  and for the first time in eight years, had a pain level that was bearable. He also had enough titanium in his back to stop a train.** Chronic pain and uncontrolled depression can make life next to impossible, and before surgery #7, we were dealing with both of them. Pain and pain meds can make you angry, and unpredictable, and detached, and a whole bunch of other things, and, because I was struggling to find the right combination of medications to help with my own depression, I had hit the outer limits of my ability to help Ren or to cope with his moods. We were lucky to make it through the spring of 2019.

Ren's rods. There are five of them just to be safe.

Anyway, Ren woke up from surgery a year ago today, and, with pain levels between 2 and 4, his life was different. Even though he had a 15-inch incision and a bunch of new hardware in his back, he felt like a new man after years of being at between 6 and 8 on the pain scale. We kept waiting for the intense pain to return as the "pain pack" the doctors had inserted during surgery wore off. But it never did.

Sometimes you don't realize the load you've been carrying until you aren't carrying it any more. Probably the biggest difference between Ren before surgery #7 and Ren after surgery #7 is that he was suddenly back in our lives again. For years, he spent much of the time we were all home lying in bed or on the couch while I handled child management and dinner prep. He often couldn't come to the kids' events because sitting on classroom chairs or bleachers, standing, or walking were too much for him. While I was becoming familiar with the restaurants and shops around town, and while I was driving kids to events in cities near and far, he was home, practically confined to the four walls of our house. When the back stopped hurting, we suddenly found ourselves together again, trying to put the pieces of our marriage and family back into place. Often that meant me introducing him to a place I've been many times but he'd never been before.

Gratuitous picture of the cat sitting on a puzzle Pink made me stay up half the night to finish.

It's pretty surreal to get the chance to see what comes after everything falls apart. I've learned a lot from it, especially since the pandemic has given us so much time to be together and to reflect. First, I've learned that our kids are hella resilient (and funny, and awesome, and not a little maddening). Those years when Ren couldn't do anything, the kids  often didn't understand why he couldn't do what other kids' dads could do. But, instead of becoming angry or resentful, they figured out ways to be expressive and creative and helpful. They also figured out ways to keep being kids, for better or for worse.

False bottom tissue box where Pink stashed candy and wrappers.

Second, some things are worth sticking out. For months and months and months, I wasn't sure Ren and I were going to make it because his pain and my depression made it nearly impossible for us to support each other. On top of that, for years and years, I wasn't sure his back would ever allow him to get to a place where we could enjoy things like travel or hiking again. So many years of uncertainty taught us how to stick it out, though, and I'm glad that we both kept trying. I'm absolutely sure that if either of us was slightly less stubborn, we wouldn't be together today discovering what this life after things fall apart can look like.

And, third, you really just never know, so you might as well try to live in the moment. The past 8 or so years have been hard, and it has taken awhile for me to believe that maybe, just maybe, the other shoe isn't going to drop this time. (I mean, unless you count the whole pandemic thing, which some days totally feels like my fault since surely MY bad luck is the reason this is all happening. I mean, we finally have a summer where someone doesn't need a surgery or a hospitalization, and I finally have tenure, so OF COURSE there's a worldwide plague). It's weird to be on the other side of so many years of chaos and back-to-back emergencies. I'm finding I'm having to rediscover how to "human" again. I am learning how to do things like have hobbies and enjoy down time with the kids (I've done a lot of decoupage and puzzles; and hiking--lots of hiking).

Can you have too many decoupage boxes? Asking for a friend.

I may have a problem. That, or I may just need to figure out new things to decoupage.

Ooooh, round box!

Some days, like when Facebook memories pop up on my page or when my depression isn't so great, I can get really stuck thinking about the trauma we've dealt with (2017, when Ren had heart issues and pulmonary emboli and might have died had we not stumbled our way into getting him the help he needed STILL haunts), but most days, I figure out how to live in the present and lean into this new life of ours.

Puzzle for Sky's room.

So, what am I trying to tell you, my dear readers? Thanks to months and months of brain-numbing quarantine and lack of sustained interactions with other adults, I really don't know. But, I THINK what I am trying to say is that I hope you remember that these current challenges are temporary and that you and the people you love have the capacity to grow and to change and to deal with whatever the universe throws your way. (Though I'm really hoping that once we get "through" the COVID-19 pandemic that the universe just kind of gives us all a few months off to try to regroup, straighten our collars, and have coffee with our friends again).


*In some ways, that is wishful thinking, since we know he has impacted levels in his neck that will most likely one day need attention, but for now, we choose not to worry about those.

 ** Lol. Not really, but maybe at LEAST enough to keep from another break!

A Metaphor for Just About Everything

In the week leading up to the surgery, I started an 1000-piece puzzle that I'd bought after our trip to Colorado. As a fan of WPA posters of National Parks, I thought the puzzle would be a nice way to spend time with the kids during all the downtime and long periods of waiting that come with surgery and recovery. The puzzle turned out to be a total jerk, though, with purposely misleading shapes and impossible to identify markings. Friends who have done other WPA National Park puzzles later told me that this was a thing. I didn't know that when I started, though.

At the beginning

Soon, the puzzle became a pretty accurate metaphor of, well, of a whole bunch of things. It looked easy enough but was unnecessarily hard. On the outside, the puzzle seemed pleasant, almost peaceful, but on the inside, it was a jumbled, untangleable mess. Then there was the fact that I couldn't get anyone to actually DO the puzzle with me--not even Big Sissy who had come to help and who normally can't walk away from a puzzle once she starts.

In the end, I found myself obsessed with the stupid thing, staying up too late, drinking scotch, and watching Letterkenny, completely unable to walk away from it. And then, after working on it for hours, discovering I'd only managed to fit a handful of pieces into place. This went on for weeks. Ren's surgery came and went, as did his hospitalization. In the second week post-op, my brother came to help. Unsurprisingly, he also had no interest in the puzzle. As life post-op went on, I found myself stuck, making very little headway with it.

The state of the puzzle on the night before surgery.

Two and a half weeks post-op, on the night before school started for the kids and just over a week before my own semester started, I finally had a breakthrough with the puzzle. Sure, I stayed up too late and watched way too many episodes of Riverdale, but by the time I crawled into bed around 1:30, it felt like the end was in sight.

The next morning I woke up feeling more positive than I had in awhile. When Ren came rolling out with his walker, I said, "Look at the puzzle! I think it's really coming along" Pink was the first to ask me if I was being sarcastic. Ren just kind of stared at me.

Noooooooooooo!

You guys, I feel like I've become pretty good at taking a lot of things in stride. But, when I saw what the cats had done to the puzzle, my brain kind of short circuited. On the outside, I looked utterly calm and unconcerned, but in my head, I was sure this was the final sign that all hope was lost.

In a rare moment of insight, Ren and the kids seemed to know exactly what was going on even though I didn't say anything. Pink and Stow set about trying to fix it, and when I told them to just put it into the box, they did so as gingerly as possible. Ren encouraged me not to give up and suggested I keep going despite the setback, but I knew I didn't have the time or energy to do it all over again.

Waiting with the kids for the bus, I texted my brother to tell him what had happened. He asked if I planned to try to fix it, and when I said no, this is how he replied:

"Then I should probably tell you about the piece I took out and hid from you now?"

"It's in the top drawer of your coffee table...I couldn't resist...Sorry (not really)."

Suddenly, the puzzle became a whole new metaphor. It turns out that no matter how old you are, you can never escape the antics of your older siblings. Worse? Ren saw my brother hide the piece, making him an accomplice to this particular crime. Had I gotten to the 999th piece and found the last one missing, I would've been pretty upset. Had I then learned that my brother and the spouse I WAS SPENDING MOST OF MY TIME HELPING RECOVER FROM A SPINE SURGERY were pranking me, I'm not sure it would have ended well for Ren. As it was, I asked Ren why he didn't tell me about the puzzle piece. "I completely forgot about it," he said. Given his level of pain and the meds, I guess I could buy that.

I added the missing piece to the box and tried to forget about the puzzle.

But, I couldn't seem to let it go, and I found myself feeling more aimless and isolated than I had before the CATastrophe. It was about this time that the puzzle became a metaphor for not giving up and for trusting friends because the next day one showed up with a puzzle keeper and a few hours of free time and worked on the puzzle with me until it was almost back to its pre-cat state.

Almost back to its pre-CATastrophe state

A few days later, I put in the last piece. Only, it turns out it wasn't the last piece because, this puzzle wouldn't be a useful metaphor if it wasn't STILL MISSING THE PIECE IN THE VERY MIDDLE. I told my brother who swore that he hadn't taken two pieces. Knowing how much he revels in being the source of my unhappiness, his lack of glee convinced me he was telling the truth.

999 pieces

In Japanese, there's this phrase shikatta ga nai which comes in really helpful at a time like this. I mean, what was I going to do about it? Somehow over the weeks of the puzzle sitting in the middle of a high-traffic area, a piece disappeared. I looked for it, of course, but it was gone. So, I did the only thing I could do; I rolled up the puzzle and stood it in the corner of my bedroom, assuming that one day we would either find the piece or I would give in to the idea that 999 pieces of an 1000-piece puzzle was indeed the perfect metaphor for my life.

The 1000th Piece

In the end, though, I guess I don't know WHAT the puzzle is a metaphor for because once Ren started feeling okay, and once he started helping with cleaning and decluttering again, he found the missing piece at the bottom of an empty sanitary napkin box that Pink has been using to hold her colored pencils.

There. Analyze THAT!

Reset

Oops. Apparently I wrote this and forgot to post it. That tells you how things have been going...Anyway, here's something from August 19th. I'm working on an update. Promise.

*****

It has been two weeks since Ren's SEVENTH spine surgery. In the weeks leading up to it, I felt an overwhelming sense of dread that I haven't had before the other surgeries. I mean, I've never looked forward to them, and I've always gone through a process of being angry and sad about what was about to happen, but this time, I just couldn't shake the feeling that I just didn't want to go through this again. For weeks, I thought about it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why this one felt so much worse than the others.

Then, the morning of surgery, as we went through the various steps of pre-op--helping Ren get disinfected and dressed in a paper gown; watching as he was hooked up to heart monitors and put on an IV; talking to the anesthesiologist and the surgeon; waiting, waiting, and waiting some more--it started to dawn on me that we were about to hit reset on our lives once again.

When Ren has a surgery, it's a bit like getting killed when you're trying to make it through the level of a video game--you die and then you have to start again. This time, we'd made it longer between surgeries than ever before, and I didn't want to start over again.

The first spine surgery was March of 2012, and this last one was August 2019--seven years and five months between the first one and the last one. Seven spine surgeries in seven years. But, this time, you guys. This time, we made it for 742 days--just over two years! I really thought we had finally completed the spine surgery level of this video game of our lives.

The new hospital rooms had smart boards. "Get well soon!"

Instead, we find ourselves respawned once again. Going through the same level over and over again has taught us some things. We generally know what to expect with the surgery and post-op. Each time, we gain some new skills. This time, for example, we made sure to get all of the assistive devices out and ready before going to the hospital, and I even remembered to get his post-op prescriptions filled ahead of time. Knowing that I would be homebound and essentially unable to do work while caring for Ren and the kids, started working on a puzzle that I knew would keep me both distracted and present for everyone. None of these are earth-shattering changes, but they are things I didn't do for previous surgeries because we were in denial about what was to come.

Having new skills and knowledge to draw from for each surgery is a blessing and a curse, though. This time, more than ever, we understand that the respawning can be unpredictable and sometimes pretty traumatic. Some surgeries, we respawn really close to where we were pre-op, so the way forward is clear. Other surgeries, we've been sent back to the beginning of the level and had to work out a better way through the obstacles we encountered there.  And, last surgery, we got respawned into a place we'd never been before.

Hardware removed from Ren's spine.

I get that this is a terrible metaphor and probably even worse if you don't know the first thing about gaming. But, the point is that each surgery takes us out of the game and the puts us down somewhere unexpected or unfamiliar, and then we have to figure out how to get back into the game and make forward progress. At this point, it feels a lot like an exercise in futility. And, it reminds me why I stopped gaming.

*****

Last surgery, we were respawned into a world of medical complications that took us months to traverse and untangle. For weeks, I wasn't sure if Ren was going to be ok. He remembers nothing from the first two months after that surgery. This surgery has put us into an equally bewildering place. This surgery, Ren has had the fewest complications of any surgery thus far. Surely, this is because we spent a lot of time talking to the surgeon and the anesthesiologist to troubleshoot what went wrong last time. The surgeon has also continued to improve his procedures based on the latest findings, which I am sure also helped. Not since the first surgery back in 2012 have we respawned into a world where Ren has less pain than he did before surgery. We are, of course, very thankful. We still have four more weeks of no driving and ten more weeks of no bending, twisting, or lifting, so we aren't out of the woods, yet.

It's nice that no one has needed to go to the ER in the past two weeks, though.

Long Recovery

I had a dream last night that Stow was having a meltdown and Ren, misunderstanding my request, picked him up in an attempt to help get things under control. Stow weighs well above Ren’s 40-pound lift limit, so picking him up caused Ren's broken rods to fold upon themselves, leaving him in a tangled heap on the floor. A couple of days before his 2017 surgery, I had a bright and airy dream in which the procedure was over in the blink of an eye, and by the time I got to Ren’s hospital room, he was standing tall and unencumbered, grinning at the reflection of his restored posture. The dreams I have the week before surgery are never subtle.

Ren comes around slowly after surgery; he can sometimes spend three or four hours in recovery. Sitting in the waiting room, long after the scheduled finish time, long after other families have come and gone and come and gone again, long after the doctor meets with me in the tiny consultation room, so small that our knees almost touch as he tells me things went as well as they could have, the gravity of what lies ahead always hits me hardest.

At some point, the nurses call for me because they can’t wake Ren, and they think that, somehow, his waking has gotten lost in translation--as if he doesn’t realize he’s supposed to open his eyes already. The thing is, though, I don’t want to translate here; I don’t even want to be here. What could I say to Ren that they haven’t tried already?

The recovery room lacks anything that might give even the slightest hint of homeyness or comfort. Sterile and all hard, shiny surfaces and white sheets with beeps and drains and businesslike nurses, I feel most lost there, as I look down at Ren, who is pale and non-responsive and whose sleep apnea repeatedly triggers alarms. Since I can’t really process the sights and sounds of Ren’s incapacitation, I focus on the the feet of nurses in the recovery room and wonder why they always seem to be wearing Crocs. Why is it always Crocs?

The first major surgery Ren and I went through together--a revision surgery following a serious shoulder injury--we’d been married just three weeks. It was his third shoulder surgery in six months and was done at a hospital two hours from where we lived. In my tiny tin-can of a car, I found myself commuting on unfamiliar roads, barreling along the highway at speeds my car wasn’t meant to go. Pre-GPS and cell service, I had to memorize the exits and back roads that got me to the hospital with the impossible-to-pronounce name. And, once there, I had to remember how to find my way through the snaking, maze-like hallways to Ren. Even now I can see the farm fruit stand that marked my first turn off the highway and the onsen center--named (puzzlingly) after Confucius--just before the turn that led into the hospital. I don’t remember what I did while I waited for Ren’s shoulder repair to be complete, but I do remember being brought into the recovery room only to find Ren lying naked on a gurney covered by a single towel. Unconscious but in pain, he cringed and squirmed, and it became clear to me that my job was to watch over him and his towel. 

Nineteen years and ten surgeries have passed between then and now, but I know come Monday, when he has his seventh spine surgery, I will find myself watching over Ren as lost as I was that first time. I will find myself, once again, feeling like I have no idea what to do; feeling like I want to fall apart, but knowing that if I don’t keep it together on that first day, there’s no way I will make it through what comes next.

I know I am not the first person to go through difficult medical situations with a spouse. I know that there are people all around me who care and who want to help. I know that each week we get further beyond the day of surgery will be a week closer to reclaiming some kind of normalcy. But, I also know no one can do this for me, and there’s something impossibly lonely and isolating in that.

Forest Bathing

The summer I was 20, I lived and worked at a youth hostel and retreat center in Grand Lake, Colorado. An Indiana girl, I had before then only ever dreamed of living in the mountains. I spent much of that summer in Colorado wondering why I was born in the flat land of corn.

The job required me to spend three out of every five days running the registration desk, cleaning toilets, and cutting vegetables (not all at the same time, obviously). But, the other two days, I was free to roam, and little by little, I covered most of the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park, walking alone for hours surrounded by rocks, trees, and bodies of water whose grandeur was a constant reminder of how small and insignificant my life was next to the vastness of the universe and the expanse of geologic time.

My days on those trails were spent encountering unexpected wildlife and discovering new vistas around every turn. In the mountains, I was completely present. Everything seemed clearer. I felt like I could breathe for the first time. I left that summer in the mountains restored.

Me, Colorado circa 1992

One of my good friends from college spent the same summer at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. In those pre-email days, I was a fervent letter writer, and she was one of my most reliable pen pals. I wrote about my anguish at knowing my time in those mountains was limited since, come August, I had to go back to the stifling humidity and relentless flatness of the Midwest. She wrote back, "Breathe deep the mountain air and save it for the rougher days."

I'm not sure I've gotten such good advice before or since.

Back at college, I tried to live by those words and draw upon the lessons I learned during those hours alone in the mountains. And, when the last reserves of mountain air seemed to leave me, I drove along the lonely country roads of rural Indiana searching for any vista that could appease my wandering soul.

I've had chances to be in the mountains since then. Ren and I met and started dating because of our love of hiking. For three years I lived on the side of a mountain in rural Kyushu and rode my bike along rivers and rice paddies. I spent weekends with Ren exploring Kuju and Aso and Kirishima. But, our struggles with autism and allergies and the (god forsaken) spine have left us landlocked in a barren landscape. It's hard to imagine hiking and biking and camping given the set of challenges we face, and it's even harder not to feel completely hemmed in by the fears that these challenges bring. But, it has also become abundantly clear to me that I need the mountains and woods like I need the air in my lungs.

*****

Just after sunrise at camp.

As things have fallen apart the past few weeks, I've felt myself drawn to the woods (flat though they may be). Walking along creeks or lakes in the early morning or evening, I try to find some of that "mountain air" that makes it possible to breathe.

In Japan, they acknowledge the restorative power of nature by emphasizing the importance of "forest bathing" (shinrin yoku). Forest bathing highlights how simply being in the woods can heal our souls.

Sunset at camp.

I've started taking the kids with me when I walk or bike. It seems they could use some restoration, too. It thrills me to see them drawn to the trees and streams and rocks. They haven't lost their ability to let nature speak to them.

Near home.

We had already started planning a two-week road trip out West when we learned about the broken rods, so yesterday after we got home from the surgery consult, I had to tell the kids the trip was off. Their responses were quick and unfiltered; they were angry and sad and scared. They wanted to know why they have to spend so much of their lives waiting for their dad to have surgery or waiting for him to recover from surgery. They wanted to know if we would ever get to go to Florida or Colorado or Hawaii or any of the many places their friends visit in the summer. They worried about starting middle school and high school less than two weeks after the surgery. They know how much life turns upside down when Ren has surgery, and they were worried about what this seventh spine surgery would mean for all of us.

Whereas with previous surgeries, I could convince them (and myself) to look on the bright side, this time, I found myself at a loss for words. They're right. This is scary and unfair. None of us deserves this.

Near home.

Today, I decided we'd go to the mountains anyway. It will be a shorter trip, and we will have to fly instead of drive. I'm trying not to worry about the cost of it as we head into another avalanche of medical bills. Maybe forest bathing is what we need to get us through this time. I don't know, but it's certainly worth a try.

"The mountains are calling and I must go." 
John Muir

A Thousand Tiny Cuts

I wish I could say that Ren and I have come to terms with the spine news, but we haven't. I wish I could say that my powers of positive thinking and spiritual beliefs have helped me know it will be okay, but that's not true, either. Instead, in the down time I've had between the fifth-grade camping trip, Stow's "Nerf Karate Panda" birthday party, and various graduation activities this weekend, I've been mentally composing a list of the thousand tiny cuts that threaten to do us in. 

So, I made a table. I know it's lame and that you probably don't even care, but I feel like someone needs to keep a record, a record that will either tell of our amazing ability to persevere and overcome or one that so clearly maps the detours and road blocks along the path to our demise.

September 2009	Moe starts as teaching fellow at small liberal arts college.
December 2010	Sky formally diagnosed with autism after extensive testing; Pink is diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy.
March 2011	Pink is diagnosed with other food allergies.
May 2011	Stow is born.
May 2011	Pink is hospitalized and receives asthma diagnosis.
September 2011	Ren’s back goes south on Sky’s first (and Ren's last) ever Cub Scout camping trip.
March 2012	Ren has his first spine surgery (a lamnioplasty) in the lumbar spine.
March 2012	Moe accepts position as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the same college.
May 2012	Moe successfully defends her dissertation.
May 2012	Stow turns 1.
August 2012	Ren has his second spine surgery (a laminectomy) in the lumbar spine; Stow is diagnosed with C-diff and a MRSA infection.
March 2013	Moe accepts a tenure-track position.
April 2013	Stow has an endoscopy, colonoscopy, and cystoscopy to determine cause of multiple infections and repeated “failure to thrive.”
May 2013	Stow turns 2.
July 2013	Family moves from one small midwestern town to a another small midwestern town.
August 2013	Moe starts new job.
November 2013	Ren has first his lumbar fusion surgery.
Winter 2013/2014	Polar vortex—Ren doesn’t leave the house from November until April. Moe shovels a LOT of snow.
March 2014	Ren and Moe go to Mayo Clinic to see if anything can be done for the spine. They are told (paraphrasing), "The spine is bad. It won't get better. Learn to live with pain."
May 2014	Stow turns 3.
September 2014	Ren has a 2-level fusion in his cervical spine.
May 2015	Stow turns 4.
September 2015	Ren diagnosed with severe depression.
November 2015	Spine surgeon discovers spinal cord is at risk of being permanently damaged due to stenosis.
December 2015	Ren has a second lumbar fusion and doesn’t leave the house from December to April.
February 2016	Stow is preliminarily diagnosed with autism.
May 2016	Stow turns 5.
December 2016	Family completes first year since 2010 that no one is hospitalized.
March 2017	Stow is formally diagnosed with autism after extensive testing.
May 2017	Ren’s kyphosis is so bad, they (Ren, Moe, and the specialists) determine it needs to be fixed so Ren can have a chance at a better quality of life. Stow turns 6.
July 2017	Ren has a spinal fusion from T2-S1 that requires 140 staples. He doesn't leave the house for anything except doctor's appointments until October.
August 2017	Ren hospitalized for heart attack symptoms.
September 2017	Ren hospitalized with double pulmonary emboli.
December 2017	Lung cancer scare for Ren.
January 2018	Doctor suspects bone bruise in femur and tells Ren he has to limit walking for six weeks.
May 2018	Stow turns 7.
December 2018	Moe gets tenure. Ren cleared by spine surgeon’s office after x-rays and exam show fusion looking good, completing only the second year since 2010 that no one was hospitalized.
January 2019	Polar vortex. Ren starts feeling new pain and hearing new noises coming from his lower back.
April 2019	After months of phone consultations, Ren finally agrees to be seen at spine center again.
May 2019	Spine doctor discovers broken rods. Stow turns 8.

When I am looking on the bright side, I remind myself that these circumstances would test the strongest of families, and I tell myself we should be proud of how we've pulled through and found humor and joy even in the hardest times. But, when I can't find the bright side, I wonder why the hits just keep coming and doubt that I have it in me to keep fighting.

I've promised myself and my readers that this blog will always be "real," and sometimes real means that I don't know what comes next or whether we have the grit and strength necessary to face it.  I don't know how we go on from here, but I do know that we have a spine consult scheduled for this week and that Ren and I will do what we can to keep moving forward until we just can't do it anymore.