All is well and Blake came home last night! I finally got a photo of Mommy & Daddy holding their son!!
GrandMar
Give Him a Moustache…
…and he looks just like Grandpa! Unfortunately Blake is not coming home with Dawn tonight. She should be discharged about 8 PM, but they want to keep Blake a little longer. The good news is that the respirator was removed yesterday and the IV today. He’s still in the Special Care Unit and is only hooked up to heart, pulse and temperature monitors. Yesterday he had trouble keeping down food, but that seems OK today.
We’ll keep you all posted!
GrandMar
Welcome to the World…Blake Christian Kaczynski
After a pretty rough delivery (3 1/2 hours pushing) Blake Christian was born around 7 PM last night (inducing began at 10:30 the night before) . There were a few complications…waste in the fluids, umbilical cord in a knot, and low heart rate due to the stress of being in the birth canal so long. There were 3 pediatricians present who decided to keep the baby in the Special Care Unit, hopefully just for last night. It’s hard to see his face in the attached picture due to all the tubes, but we think he looks just like Dawn. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a better picture tonight.
Baby Bean’s Last Night Inside!
Well, Baby Bean just doesn’t want to budge. So, Dawn will be going to the hospital at 10:30 tonight (Wednesday) to be induced. She had an ultra-sound yesterday and the baby appears to be about 9 lbs. That’s big enough to come on out! The process should take 24-36 hours. Hopefully I will be posting his picture tomorrow night (or Friday morning)!
Here’s a picture of Dawn from Sunday (Granddad’s birthday). She looks even bigger (definitely lower) than last week’s picture, don’t you think?!
Making me feel old…
I was down the Tavern Saturday night (like virtually every other Saturday night) when the bartender, Kevin, told me I should hang around later than usual because one of the waitresses, Brianne Kepler, was turning 21 at midnight and was going to stop into the Tavern for her first “official” drink.
Bri’s mother is Anne “Rip” Herpel, one of my ex’s, so I decided to hang around. I’m sure some of you remember Rip, we went out back in the early 70s, and I know she made at least one trip to Chicago. Rip was a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sister of Pat Driscoll, who was my roommate Pat Daugherty’s girlfriend (and later first wife) when I got out of the service in Dec 1970. Rip and I started going out around a year later.
Rip and I had an off and on thing for several years. I can remember being down at the Tavern one time sitting at a table with this older couple, Don and Betsy, who had dinner there almost every night. Betsy started giving me grief about Rip saying I really didn’t treat her well. All of a sudden, out of the blue, their son George who was my age and happened to be sitting with them that night, suddenly chirped up “I agree with Mom. Anne’s such a wonderful woman, I’d leave my wife for her.” I’ll skip some of the details but, sure enough, a year and a half later, he did. Needless to say, George is Bri’s dad.
Well at about 11:45 in come George and Anne to surprise Bri (not as big a surprise as Steve, Gary, Ronnie, and I showing up for Shannon’s 21st but a nice surprise for her anyway). Bri showed up right on cue a couple of minutes after midnight and was very much surprised to see her folks there. Here’s a photo of her having her first official drink (some special shot combination that the bartender made up for her) with Pat, Rip, and me (her dad didn’t join us at the bar for some reason).
Speaking of ex-girlfriends – I was recently sent this photo which I thought Marilyn would enjoy seeing. It was taken in St Martin in the Carribean. The woman on the far left is Diane Wooding, an ex of mine and an old roommate of Marilyn’s. Pat Daugherty owns a vacation home down there and invited Diane and a few others down for a vacation. The woman in the back right is Pat’s current wife Ruth.
The girls up front are some of my “nieces”. On the left is Natalie Berrena, whom I have talked about many times on the blog, the one in the middle is Lindsay Werner, whose father worked with Pat and me at the Tavern, and the one on the right is Kiley Campanis, whose parents I don’t know (at least I don’t think I know them). The girls all worked together at the Tavern (the other two women however are unknown to me).
Lindsay now works in NYC and emailed me the photo telling me about how she met one of my ex’s and got to hear Pat and Diane tell “lots of Larry Fall stories” (Given how one of Pat’s favorite sayings is “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, I can only imagine some of the things she must have heard).
Diane is now retired and living part time in Florida near her mother and part time back in Philly.
I get to feel old every time I run into some ex girlfriend or old friend who’s now retired or who has a kid starting college or turning 21, etc. Of course, one thing that I have successfully avoided that would make me feel really really old would be to have a grandchild (how’s that making you feel Steve B?) 🙂
Can She Make It?
Two more days till her due date? What do you think?
Showered with Gifts!
Last month (I’m a little behind in blogging), Andrea and Shannon threw a beautiful shower for Dawn. About 25 friends and family members enjoyed a Saturday luncheon (fabulous food) at the Metropolis Ballroom a few blocks from Dawn’s home. Baby Bean is going to be the best dressed little boy in Illinois!
Last evening (from 10:00 PM until 2:00 AM) we spent at the emergency room. Dawn’s leg had cramped up and been numb since about 5:00 PM. Her doctor was concerned that there might be a blood clot. An ultrasound of the leg showed nothing, so they sent her on her merry way (still with leg pains). She has a month left and I fear her doctor may put her on bed rest. Her pregnancy has been fabulous, so maybe she has just pushed herself a little too much. She loves to shop everyday and she probably should not be doing that (for more than one reason).
I’ll keep you all posted of her progress!
Marilyn & Steve / BBQ & Bocce
Had a nice visit and small BBQ party with Marilyn and Steve yesterday. A few friends, a couple kids, lots to drink and more Pulled Pork.
Bocce and croquet, too.
Why this picture?
I’ve been using a version of this photo that I have on Facebook in my profile on Blogger. Evidently, Blogger has installed new software that limits the url length of your profile photo to 64 characters and my Facebook link exceeds that. When I inser the photo in this post, it gets uploaded to Gary’s Blogger server and I can now link my Blogger profile to the photo on Gary’s server.
FWIW – the girls, from left to right, Vanessa Fiore, Ashely Schlosser, Susan Kim, and Taylor Baker, are all students hired as Bacardi girls here in State College. They appear at various bars and functions here in town to promote Barcardi products (usually not quite dressed as well though) and were doing such at the martini contest.
Now that that is out of the way, here’s a complete recap of my surgery todate.
The surgery went exceptionally well and everything was super…. but only for about 24 hours.
The surgeon was right. I was able to walk out of the clinic without any problems. I even stopped by the golf course Thursday afternon and went to the Spikes game Thursday night. Friday morning I woke up with a little soreness behind the knee but nothing that was at all a problem. I was even telling people that my left knee (the one that was operated on) was feeling better than the right one (and that was the truth).
Then all of a sudden things changed.
I was crawling on my floor. monkeying around with one of my backup computers, and then got up. Getting up was a little awkward because the knee didn’t have a lot of flexibility. I didn’t particularly notice anything pop or pull as I got up but as soon as I put weight on my left leg, the knee hurt like hell. The knee quickly started to hurt and swell. I pretty much became immobilized – I couldn’t put ANY weight on the leg at all without excruciating pain shooting through the knee. I very quickly put myself to bed (the only moving that I would do around the townhouse was confined to inching along on my hands and butt). And the pills didn’t seem to do much to help the constant pain in the knee. My ambitious plans for the weekend suddenly went all to hell.
For the next 24 hours I really didn’t get much sleep.
Things started getting better by Sunday. The constant pain started to come under control and I could switch my pain medication from Vicodin for pain to ibuprofen to address the inflammation in the knee. I was also frequently icing the knee to try to control the swelling. By late Sunday afternoon I was able to get around the townhouse pretty well by leaning on things and using my walking golf cart (bottom floor of the townhouse only) and a seven iron as crutches.
Today was even better. I’ve been able to find a couple of comfortable positions in bed so I can sleep well. The swelling in the knee has come down considerably. The knee can pretty much bear my weight without any shooting pains. I can now walk around the townhouse without having to hang on things to maneuver. I no longer have to butt hop up and down my stairs as I can safely scale them one step at a time. I also no longer need to improvise crutches (although I am continuing to use the seven iron as a cane – more of an emotional support than anything). And most importantly, I was finally able to stand up long enough to take a shower!
I’m going to try to start bringing my life back to normal in the next couple of days. My stitches come out Wednesday and my objective is to make our men’s golf league Wednesday night… as a spectator only. I’ve given up on my original plan to play – my playing plans are to be ready to play Wednesday a week with maybe a practice round that Tuesday. I’m bummed that I missed the Spikes games this weekend but the way that they are playing I evidently didn’t miss much. I do plan on making the Spikes game this Thursday though.
That’s where things stand at the moment.
Tennessee Vacation
More photos (not a lot) can be seen here.