Honing In and Helping Out

When Devildog got fired from the retail job, (meepmeep! tire tracks don't wash out of clothes by the way) I told him "Go to school" and he resisted with the same LAME excuses he'd been using the last 10+ years. It was October, and I told him he had time to keep looking for a job while he got things started for the Spring semester in January. Nothing came of the job search, but he did get his butt to school. He went to school through the Summer, and into the Fall. Then started that 4th semester but things got crazy, and it didn't happen. But he did get a very part time job. He chose nursing as his focus of study, which I find ironic and amusing. After a MAJOR injury, and much of his childhood spent in doctors' offices, hospitals, etc, and he hates any proximity to any of it.

But I see it in him. It's his calling. He is a natural born leader, and always has been. The Marine Corps honed that trait, Home Depot put it to use handily till someone lied to cover their own misstep, and he is prone to taking charge elsewhere. It's a different dynamic at home, because I'm here with my own way of doing things, and there's wisdom in the compromise.

He has related a story of an incident on the softball field where a pitcher got lasered with a ball coming back from the batter, right smack dab in the temple, splitting his head open to the bone. There was blood gushing everywhere, and Devildog jumped in, taking charge, calling for ice, putting pressure on the bleed, talking to the guy to keep him awake, and down from a panic because every heart beat sent more blood surging from the wound, risking his consciousness and potentially the opportunity to see his children grow. EMTs arrived, crediting Devildog with giving them a live, conscious patient to transport. Devildog came home from the game that night, a little shaken and worried for how things would result for this guy.

Several months later, the pitcher was working a service call - at the full time job Devildog landed a few weeks after I enrolled to sell Thirty-One. In any case, he saw Devildog and stopped to say hi to him. There's a massive scar, nerve damage, some other brain injury type things, and the gift of being alive and seeing his wife and children every day. And there was a sense of pride the day Devildog got a personal update from this guy. It took a couple days because of our crazy schedules, but he told me about the encounter, and I could see and sense the pull he has to pursue this goal.

At the first ultrasound appointment in July, he was enthralled, not just as a new dad, but as a guy who took Anatomy & Physiology with the intention of going to nursing school. He was naming off the parts the ultrasound tech was labeling for the reports going to the doctors, and parts not being labeled. He was totally fascinated by the images of blood flow, and little tiny human parts, and the magic glimpse into a secret world that the ultrasound machine provided. I was watching my mini-human, as a mom. I was watching my husband as a wife who knew she had to make things happen for them both.

Fast forward a few weeks to the follow up ultrasound to check that choroid plexus situation, plus fetal echo because they like to pick on the old broads who breed. Here he was again, just completely like a little kid who loves trains visiting a train station. I mean it was so uber cool to watch the valves of the heart flicking in response to the blood moving through them, and the pulsing of the heart, and the ductal arch, and the red and blue of the blood flow on the magic screen. But for Devildog, it was even more evident that this was more than just cool stuff for him. This, was unequivocally, his calling.

He has said he needs to go back to school, and I absolutely agree. The timing for our lives has never been all that convenient for anything, so here we go with a few more years of Semper Gumby soon. I want for my husband to enjoy his job and love what he does. He's not at that job right now, and the only thing keeping him where he is, happens to be a lot of overtime pay, insurance because I'm pregnant with our 5th child, and sheer adult responsibility. In turn to him feeling called to go to school, I feel compelled to do what ever it is I need to do to help him get it done. I know this means a lot of sacrifice for all of us. I know this means a sort of geographical single parenthood. But I survived being a Marine's wife, setting me up to be able to navigate that kind of journey. Semper Gumby it will be, and a lot of eyes on the eventual prize. I can't say I'm entirely excited about this whole idea because I know it's a lot of work. But there are lots of wise quotes citing opportunities looking like work, so I'm just going to trust that between God, us, our support network, and lots of work ethic, we will get through this challenge and emerge on the other side with something awesome.