Time for a Break

Sorry I have been MIA from the world of blog.

Joseph is doing well now, but had a set back last week, so I have been busy, busy.

With trying to keep our life going, work, taking care of the kids and looking into moving-- something had to give, and it was the blog.

I hope to be back up very soon!

How Soon We Return

Look who sat in a chair today! He even got a heart pillow as his prize for making it through!

The past few weeks I have been able to think of nothing else. Conversations in my head went something like this:

“Anna has been up all night screaming every night this week. She is 7 months old, we really need to nip this thing in the bud….”

“Who cares, Joseph has to have heart surgery.”

Ok, so that is a an understandable response for the wife of a man facing a really scary heart procedure. But……

then it spiraled into:

“We have to go to the store because we are out of diapers.”

“Who cares, can’t think about that right now, Joseph has to be have heart surgery! Who knows if he will even be here to change diapers ever again! I can’t do this by myself, Oh my God, I will die, I will die……….I’ll go broke…..and crazy…….and I’ll have to move home with my parents……and my kids will hate me because I will cry through their whole lives……and I can’t lead their souls without Joseph…………..so they will end up getting paid to do things a lady doesn’t do…………”

Ok, so things got a wee bit out of control. In my defense, I have an amazing husband! He is truly, truly my best friend. We were even best friends before we stated dating. He changes diapers, gets up in the night to feed babies, cleans the bathrooms, and is a silently holy husband and father. So, yes, I was upset about the prospect of losing him, of the girls losing him.

Praise the Lord, his surgery went well and as of now, he is looking really good. We have a long road ahead of us in many, many ways. Your prayers are still humbly requested as this is only the first step for him and his health.

But, to me, for a while, this was the only step I could see, and it ended with a call from a surgeon in an operating room. That much I knew. I feel so very blessed by the outcome of that phone call. And then, about an hour after I was able to see him, as rough of shape as he was in, I started to think about everything else that needed to be done for life that I had let fall to the weigh side.

I’m now trying to play catch up; be by Joseph’s side, help with the girls, work, and budget for all these wonderful medical expenses. Don’t get me wrong, I am far from complaining here. I’m just realizing what I have done to myself.

So, before I go to sleep tonight (after I pay the bills and get some work done) I thought I would reflect again on Joy. The importance of finding Joy in the everyday aspects of life and taking that Joy and turning it into prayer has been really important to me over the last few months. I now see God was preparing me for the road ahead. He has taught my heart about Joy. He has taught me how to recognize Him, and all of His gifts, through Joy. In these everyday things I see grace, mercy and unconditional love. So, although yes, there is a lot on our plate here in the Rutchik home, I really just want to share our Joy, to be a witness through this gift.

In efforts to keep the Spirit of Joy alive and strong in my heart, I will share some of the Joys I have had through what have been a few of the most difficult days of my life:

My mom came to take care of my children. She pretty much canceled her life and came to pick up the pieces of mine.

My friends and family have been lining up to show me the face of Christ. The offers for assistance in any form have been pouring in and we really, truly appreciate every one of them.

My friend Krissy came to sit with me at the hospital while I waited. She did so with 2 kids at home and one in her arms. I know it was a sacrifice and she never once mentioned all the juggling she had to do to make it happen.

The medical professionals. I so appreciate their gifts, as they are so different then my own and so amaze me.

Prayer. We’ve been told by many people that our situation gave them something to pray for in a time when they felt they had fallen away from prayer. We have even been able to spend some good time in prayer with our friends. We have spent great time in prayer together.

My husband, who’s last words as they put the mask on him in the OR were, “Tell my wife I love her.” Seriously, with this man! He is romantic even in the scariest moment!

My marriage. I am so thankful for our marriage. When we face things like this I’m reminded how very strong and Christ centered our marriage is and I thank God for giving us the life situations that call us to this type of marriage.

The world. We have met and been blessed with such good people. In my mail box today we received two anonymous gifts of large sums of money. The sacrifice and dedication to the call of charitable giving in the hearts of these friends gives me hope for humanity. Who has money to spare in these times? No matter who these people are, they sacrificed because they anticipated the needs of others. How beautiful. It really touched my heart. We are all called to charitable giving in some way. It may or may not be in a financial way, but we have all been given gifts to share with one another. I thank these people for sharing with us their blessings, we will in turn pray for them. In the spirit of respecting their call to charitable giving, I won’t go asking around as to who would do such a thing and wouldn’t even know where to start.

My lovely, lovely ladies. Their faces so bright! They are my little pieces of Joy!!

And, now, my youngest little Joy is crying in the night, so off I go to enjoy some late night time with her!!

…how soon we return…..but we thank God for it!

Blessings

Thank you all for your wonderful prayers and messages for my husband Joseph and our family.

I feel so thankful and blessed to report everything went well and according to plan! I was able to be with him as he woke up.

I apologize for the this quick and choppy post, but I wanted to give an update and send out thanksgiving for you all! I also have only slept about 2 hours in the last 48 hour period, so I hope I am making sense!

Please continue to pray for us through the night.

I'm feeling good, but think I will feel a lot better after he makes it through the night.....and the next night....and the next.........

The Lion's Den

The Lion’s Den


My alarm will go off at 4:30am tomorrow, July 1st. We will rise before the sun and head out the door, ready to take on the day we are given.

At 5:00am we will check Joseph into the hospital and then I will begin my long day of waiting and praying in the Family Center and the Chapel.

At 8:00am Joseph’s heart surgery is scheduled to begin.

These are the only plans I have in life right now—and they begin in just a few hours.

It is a strange feeling, to really not know what is going to happen in you life a day from now. But, really, maybe we should all be living like this, everyday.

Regardless, I pray when my alarm goes off in just mere hours-I will be waking up to a day filled with hope.

Please pray for us tonight and throughout the day tomorrow.

Holly

Seriously

Although, logically, we all know the world does not revolve around us, sometimes, it’s hard to grasp the concept that the world does not stop when personal crisis hits. Outside of the news about Joseph’s health, we actually had a bad week last week. To ask why, in my opinion, would be too much. However, I did find the question, “Seriously?” Come out of my mouth, in varying inflections, often throughout the week.

In efforts to take life for what it is, a gift, while trying to not take things so……Seriously……I would like to share the others events of this past week.

1. On our way to what we thought was just going to be a yearly check in, we dropped our kids off at Pete and Krissy’s (check her out at A Fruitful Vine) An hour or two turned into an almost 12 hour day for my best friend and 5 kids under age 4. This includes 2 babies 6 months and younger! The woman is great with kids and a wonderful mother, SERIOUSLY! As best friends do, they let us sit in their home, in shock, as they begged to take as much of our burden as possible- and fed our family. We are so blessed by them.

2. Understandably so, I was very upset about the news of my husband's health and upcoming surgery. I did not think I would be able to face the days leading up to his operation. The though of taking care of the girls, working, going to appointments with Joseph, and preparing our life for his heart surgery seemed too much to take. Enter my mom! She came down to take care of the girls and clean my house (which REALLY needed it) so I could focus on other things! Good mom, SERIOUSLY!


3. It’s hot. It is really, really, hot. Being practically allergic to the sun and the outside world in general, I am a BIG fan of air conditioning and set mine to “cranked up” the moment the thermometer hits 75.

As my life would have it, the air conditioner in our van is broken. Seeing as we have put about $500 unexpected dollars into the van in the past 2 months, we opted for the “suck it up and deal” approach.

Despite the hot weather, my mom and I packed the kids into the van and set out to run a few errands. Upon parking at our first destination, we realized the power windows were not working. Our windows were both stuck down. I moaned, hit the steering wheel, cursed our van and said, “SER---IOUS---LY?!!”

4. We don’t have a garage, so my husband and I spent some nice quality time trying to tape our windows up with garbage bags and electrical tape. Within a few hours, we were under a tornado warning. SERIOUSLY, this is the way things go for the Rutchiks!

5. I went out to get my hair cut off. As I got in the van, I thought I would try, one last time, to get the darn windows to go up. I pressed the button and…….up they went! I have no idea how or why windows that were broken for a few days are now not broken, but I don’t have time to care! I was, however, too scared to roll them down out of fear they would become stuck again. As I drove, I vowed to withstand the heat and not touch the windows. As I grew tired and weary from the heat, I got lost. While sitting in traffic baking in the sun in my van with no air via any source, I called my husband to help me find my way home. While I was trying to explain to him where I was, we were interrupted by police and fire trucks. Before I could explain this to him, my mother beeped in on the other line to inform me the fire alarms were going off and the police and fire departments were showing up outside our building. Again, I ask, SERIOUSLY?

6. Windows still working and no fires in sight, we decided to take a dip in the pool. It was one of those perfect summer late afternoons. My friend Lora called to inform us that A&W was giving away FREE root beer floats! SERIOUSLY AWESOME! We decided to have “backwards dinner” and eat dessert first, while the chicken was cooking.

Daddy giving Tessa a taste of her first Root Beer Float. I think it DOES taste better when it's free!



7. While the chicken was cooking, the sky opened up and just dumped rain, rain, rain. We noticed our patio was collecting inches by the minute and upon investigation, found the gutter system on top of our building had snapped, RIGHT. ABOVE. OUR. DOOR. Of course. We spent so much time gathering buckets and positioning our friend’s wagon to catch the water, and then emptying the water into the storm drain, we forgot about the chicken. A smoke filled home and potential home flood. Perfect, exactly what the Rutchik’s needed!

My mom said this was the most excitement she has had in one day since we were little. She was so pooped out after a few days here!

8. Our girls know something is wrong, and are acting accordingly. Being a highly intuitive person myself, I can see them developing their intuitiveness and it makes me proud. I feel blessed by the gift and was hoping to find it in the souls of our children. Unfortunately, in this situation, it means having our little Tessa, the anti-cuddler, wanting to be help all....the...time. This is not possible when Anna is, bu nature, the most needy baby I have ever met. She herself is showing signs of distress and has decided not to sleep, ever. She has backtracked on any progress she had made in this department and is back to screaming around the clock. It is exhausting and as I anticipate our need to have others taking care of our children for us soon, I struggle this most with this one and with anger in my heart, ask God, SERIOUSLY?!!

So, that was our week! It was full of highs and lows. It was a good reminded that you can’t stop life. Things happen and you can either roll with them or not. Our prayer is that our struggles feed our souls and lead us closer to God’s Kingdom. We are praying on these lessons. We think we may be on to what we think we can take out of this roadblock. As we haven’t had the best luck with sharing our hearts recently, we’ve decided to hold this in prayer through our ordeal. No matter God’s intentions, we are holding our heads high, hand in hand, chins high and ready to take on this surgery.

A "Fare Thee Well" to Hair.

This week continues to be one for the books. I told a friend I've been experiencing great peaks and valleys, and I truly have. Joseph has been sharing with me how he is struggling to find balance in all of this. How do we continue on with our lives knowing there is a huge hurdle to jump before we can do so? On the other hand, we can’t sit and cry and throw a pit party for days on end until he is rolled into the OR. We’ve got kids to raise over here. If anything will force one into the here and now, it is a blow out diaper or a screaming baby!

We have felt the warm comfort of resting in the embrace of the Lord turn into the pounding of the “why me’s” within the same breath. The last few days we've had have not helped us in kicking this emotional yo-yo tricks showcase. But, that is for another post I am currently working on……stay tuned for more on that!

I wanted to hop on in these wee hours when everyone else is sleeping to share with you this: I got my hair chopped off! Some may think I am flying off the deep end and turning to drastic messages and to them, I say, “umm, duh!”

The reality of the situation is that I have been through this once before. God willing, I will be spending many, many a days in a hospital room. These long days of doing nothing but sitting and praying are not too conducive to the luxury of showering. Thus, maintaining my most prized physical feature, my long, thick, hair is no longer an option for this mama!


So, I decided to just chop it off and move on with more important things in life. The idea came to me when I started receiving the outpouring of love and support that has lifted me up this week. It made me uncomfortable and so very vulnerable to know so many people are talking about and praying for us. I started thinking about what I could do to offer that support to someone else. Besides prayers (which are the best form of support) I don’t have anything to give right now. My cup is empty. The one think I do have is hair! I’ve got a lot, and lot, of hair. The idea to donate it brought such joy to my bleeding heart, I knew it was brilliant.


Unfortunately, I was informed I did not have enough hair to donate as I had a short layer. But, I still needed to shed the do in order to create more time to focus on taking care of the other members of my family. So here it is! The girl who has been described like this:

“you know, that girl with the really long, really black hair”

since she was in kindergarten, gets her hair cut off.

Enjoy, and please, keep praying for my family and know I am never too busy or upset to pray for yours! Please, please let me know if I can log some prayer hours with YOU on MY heart!!


A "Fare Thee Well" to Hair!


1. Be forced to look into a mirror and be reminded of how long this hair really is while the hair is combed out.


2. Give my hubby the scared, "I think I'm really doing this" look. As if he can save me from myself!

3. Hold breath while the first cut is taken.

4. Look at part of myself on the ground.

5. Enjoy how fitting this sight is to the emotional state of the person from which this mess derived.

6. Smile at my husband, remind myself it is just hair, and move on to more important things in life....a few pounds lighter!!!

....And God Hit Pause........

……And God Hit Pause……

Uggg. That is about all I can say. For a few days, I have thought about how I was going to write this blog, IF I was going to write this blog.

Last week, I announced right here on Falling Upward that Joseph is going back to school and we will be moving come the fall. And then, he had his yearly Marfan’s appointment. The best laid plans…..

The best laid plans seem to bite the Rutchik family right in the ***, if you really want to know how I feel.

The long and the short of it is that his heart is leaking, a lot. This leak has caused it to enlarge by quite a bit. If that wasn’t bad enough, we aren’t just feeling like our world is falling in on us, we are feeling like it’s our fault. Three years ago, followed by an emergency wedding, he had an aortic root replacement. Upon the recommendations of well, everyone, we went with the valve saving option. And, here we are, three years later, having what was done before undone, to get to the valve, replacing the valve, and re-doing what was done three years ago. We don’t blame anyone, only 5% of people end of having to have the valve replaced in the first 5 years. We should have known. If ever there were going to be people in that 5%, if would be us.

So, here we are, going to consults and completing tests so we can set this nightmare up. It should happen very soon, at the recommendation of our doctor.

There it is. This is now the only priority in my life. My husband is very worried about money (we don’t have disability as an option at his job) and having to parent while not being able to hold the girls. As the wife, I’m more worried about, well, I won’t even write it, but you must know what I’m worried about. I could care less about all of those other things. We’ll figure that all out after we get through the operation. I’ll live in a cardboard box if I can do it at the side of my husband. I love him more than anything else I could ever want in life.

I didn’t know if I wanted to blog about this, or if I wanted to go MIA from the blogging world as I have done with Facebook. However, God willing, I will sitting in hospitals for many, many weeks to come, and will need something to keep me sane. Plus, this family needs prayers, prayers, prayers, and I know the Catholic mommy community here in the blogging world can offer me that. I thought about making one of those cool buttons like I have seem other families do when they are in need of prayer for health reasons, but I don’t know how to do that and I don’t really have many followers. I’m not a blogging expert, by any means. I surly don't have the energy to take a crash course in the art of the blog. I don't have the energy to eat, or smile right now.

So, I will blog on, I guess! I’m experiencing very dramatic peaks and valleys right now, so I can’t promise a well balanced person, but it will be me. This is my life now.

I’ve had some extraordinary experiences just since this happened on Wednesday. I am in the process of putting words to those experiences and sharing them here. They involve the great support of family and friends, faith struggles and feeling as if we are known as the “Poor Rutchiks” instead of just “The Rutchiks.” We seriously seem to have that cartoon cloud overhead. We discussed how humbling and difficult it is to know there are so many people praying and thinking of us. Although it makes us very uncomfortable, we unfortunately are in great need of it, again..........and thus, I end with a prayer request.

We are:

Joseph and Holly
Teresa ( 18 months) Anna (6 months)


Please join me on what I hope will be a journey full of faith and miracles. Pray for Joseph’s health, pray for our baby gals who love their daddy so much, pray for our faith..............

..............pray that God has only hit “pause.”