K's mom has been sick since February. She was in the hospital for a while, and she's now in a nursing home for therapy. She had heart surgery in 1985 -- before they tested for Hepatitis C. She got it, and she was given 18-20 years to live. Twenty-one years later, she's still fighting.
K is very close to his mom, and I've known it since the second day I knew him. The way he talks about her and his grandmother (who died a few years ago) is awesome. "Momma's boy" has a negative connotation and seems more to me like a guy who's a total wuss and lets his mommy rule his whole life. K, though, has a ton of respect for his mother, and it's very obvious. He said she taught him to be the strong person he is today. He told me about how he thought about getting out of ROTC in college because he just wasn't applying himself and making an effort. At the time, he was really focusing on his pre-med stuff. He told his mom he just didn't think he could do both. She told him that was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. After that, he said he did a complete turn-around: He started maxing out everything in PT, he became a great leader, and he really worked hard in ROTC. When he got his bronze star when he got back from Iraq, he gave it to his mom. He said it wasn't really his, since he wouldn't have gotten it without her.
So it was really upsetting to him (and for me for him) to see her the way she was that Friday when we visited her at the nursing home. She was so weak; she could barely speak, and she wasn't even holding her own cup when she took a drink. There were several people there visiting toward the end of the day, and K's mom was starting to wear out. The nurses went to put her into bed, so K and I went out into the hall. K was really upset seeing her that way. She fell asleep, and we stayed for a while waiting for her to wake up. We finally left and met some of K's friends for dinner and bar hopping.
That Saturday, we slept in because we'd been up so long the day before (4 a.m. to about 2 a.m. ). K wanted to go for a run so PT wouldn't kill him when we got back. I went with him, since it would be good exercise. I go to the gym a couple times a week, and I always run on the elliptical. I know it's a huge difference from actually running, but I figured I'd be in pretty good shape. Wrong! I did well for the first mile and a half or so, and then it started killing me. I just felt like I couldn't get enough air, and I was getting tired. I was getting really frustrated with myself. When I was in the third grade, the counselor came around with this anti-smoking, anti-drug, anti-drinking projector slide show. There was a group of teenagers who hung out, and one of them smoked. He got really skinny and bony and gaunt looking. I remember in one part, they all were running playing sports or something, and the smoker guy got really winded and couldn't run at all. That's what I felt like. And I've never smoked!! I was so mad at myself, and I wanted to just say screw it and push myself harder and get over it. But at the same time, my body was going, "Sit down and breathe!" I sat down and tried to convince K to just come back for me because at that point we were at this track he was going to run around. He said he wasn't going without me. So I explained why I was frustrated with myself. He said, "Part of my job every day is working out. I run 8 miles every Friday. I've been training for years. This is what we do. You don't do this every day." He was so sweet pepping me up and refusing to leave me. He said he wanted to run because he wanted to spend time outside with me, and that's what we were doing. So we finished our run. (By the way, today -- three days later -- it finally doesn't hurt to walk.)
We visited K's mom again for a large portion of the day. We sat outside with her, and she was doing much better. K and I went out for a nice Italian dinner, and then we went out with the same friends from the night before. I finally got to meet one of K's high school and college best friends! I was so excited. :) We stayed out that night until 4:30 a.m. I was so exhausted!
Easter morning, K and I accidentally slept late. We went to 11:15 mass, and then we met K's dad at the nursing home to pick up his mother. She had gotten up and put on makeup, and she was so excited to be leaving and spending the day with family. K told me that his mom kept saying about me, "I really like her. She's so pretty. She's so nice." That made me feel good! :) We all went to K's aunt's house. I met a few more of his relatives I hadn't met. They were all so great! I think they all liked me. They were asking me questions about Oklahoma and Texas and the South. They asked about what kinds of food we have down here -- particularly meats, since my dad's a butcher. K's grandfather (his mom's dad) was a butcher, so they all grew up around meat, too. His mom is full-blooded Italian and a couple of his relatives are Polish, so food is pretty big for them.
I was joking around with K, calling him on something dumb he'd said, so he hit my arm playing around. His mom saw him do it, so I looked at her and said, "Did you see that?!" I looked at K like I was surprised. His mom was looking at him, playing around and trying not to laugh. I said, "Your mom raised you better than that!" She nodded at him. I said, "You know better than to hit a girl!" He looked at me and said, "I didn't hit a girl." I said, "You're right -- you hit a lady, and that's even worse!" His aunt and uncle started laughing, and his aunt said, "We like her!"
K's mom had a great day that day. His dad actually wound up getting her back two hours later than he was supposed to because he didn't want to pull her away because she was enjoying herself so much. I was glad she was doing so well.
That night, we went with K and one of his friends to their campground. I'd actually never been camping before. I don't know if I consider this camping, though. To me, camping is sleeping in a tent. We slept in a camper. I've done that before. We had a bonfire that night, which was fun, but by about 2, K and I were falling asleep. We got up the next morning and went to this waterfall area of the camp. It's so pretty!
K and me in front of the falls after a night of "camping."
When we left, we went straight to visit K's mom again. I was worried that she'd be kind of down after having such a great day and seeing everyone the day before, then having to go back to the nursing home and not having something like that to look forward to for a while. Luckily, she was doing great still. She was still really talkative, she seemed strong and she looked good. I was so glad that her worst day was the first one, and things just kept going up from there. I really didn't want us to leave with her on a bad note because that would make it harder for K.
We got back to his place at about 11:00 last night. As usual, I didn't want to leave. It was such a great weekend. K is coming up here this weekend, and we're going to Oklahoma (yay!) to see my family. That should be fun.
And I am even planning on trying that running thing again ...
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