Rant #3,145: Day By Day

I am back at my usual perch today, with some mixed news to report.

My mother remains in the hospital, but it has little to do with her fall last week.

They found some other things that need to be checked out.

Without getting into great detail, while she has been moved from the intensive care unit to the general hospital population, there are a couple of things that the doctors want to look at before they send her home, so her stay in the hospital is going to be extended.

I don’t know when she might get out—hopefully this week?—but we really don’t know yet about that.

Otherwise, she is as chipper as she can be, and she is actually more retentive in the hospital than she has been at home, for whatever reason.

Twice she literally, verbally, threw me out of the room, telling me to go home, and when I get there today, she might just tell me the same thing, so her vim and vigor is there; we just have to get these other problems assessed and taken care of before she can come home.

My wife has an up and down experience since she had her head injury.

What that means is exactly what you think it means: once day she feels just about like herself, the next day she feels wobbly, and the next day she is somewhere in between.

We went to the doctor yesterday, and her prognosis is good, but it will still take time for her to get back entirely to where she once was.

Her wound is not bleeding anymore, so she won’t need another CatScan. She can drive again, go to the gym again, but both on a limited basis.

She can get a haircut again, as long as she tells the beautician to be careful around the area of the wound, which still has a scab on it.

So the prognosis for my wife is quite good, thank God. As for my mother, let them do the tests, and then we will have a better bead on where she is, but I do believe that she will be home soon.

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If things were going well in my household, today’s Rant would be about one thing and one thing only, and while normalcy is not part of our household right at the moment, there is no reason why I can’t wax poetic on today’s significance, whether things are where they should be or not.

Today is my wedding anniversary, and it is a big one, because today is our 30th anniversary.

I cannot believe that it has been 30 years that we have been married—the time has gone so very fast—but it has, indeed, been that long.

I remember the day so vividly.

June 6, 1993 was a bright, sunny day, with one problem—it was also as windy as it could be without it being a stormy day, with wind gusts literally up to 50 MPH or more at times.

The ceremony was held outside, and everything was blowing all around … yes, it was one of the ultimate “bad hair” days, and not only was everyone’s hair blowing around, but the entire area that we had the ceremony in was blown around, so all the nice things the catering hall put up to signify our new union were swaying and falling all around everyone.

And I swear,, I thought we were going to have a “Flying Nun” moment with my daughter and with two of my nephews, who were so tiny at the time that I cannot believe that they did not blow away either.

My daughter with her billowing dress … to this day, I don’t know how she stayed on the ground … and one of my nephews, who was the ring bearer, held onto his pillow so tightly that I thought he was a goner too.

Anyway, we somehow got through the ceremony, had a fantastic party that day, and the rest is history.

(And happily, we can relive everything through a video we have of that fantastic day.)

I have to tell you—and I have said this many times over the years—that to this day, I almost have to pinch myself to make sure that I am awake and that I actually married the girl of my dreams, but I actually did.

She grew up in the Rockaways, I am a Queens boy at heart, and there is just something about “Queens people” that is unique among all the people who once, or continue to, call New York City home.

We are different than those from the other boroughs, and while our time in Queens is long over, the experience is still in our blood, and will always be a major part of us.

I love my wife dearly, and I really don’t know where I would be without her.

So, in the midst of all of this recent horror, we have this big day today, and I don’t know how we will celebrate our anniversary, but even if it is just with a card, that is fine with me.

I just want my wife to continue to mend from her accident, and that is at the top of my mind now.

And my mom—who has supported my wife and I though thick and thin during the past 30-plus years—well, we need her to get back to where she was, too.

We need the family to be whole, so these two very strong women must heal, and the faster the better, although they both might be in for the long haul.

We will simply have to take it day by day with both of them.