Today is an important day for me. It marks two things in my post-college life. First, it marks the day that I started my foray into the working world after graduation. I became part of the rat race 5 years ago on this date, and for a long time it seemed I'd never need to leave, never want to leave....never leave, period.
The second important thing about today's date is that it also marks my final day working in this office. I have 2 more days working full-time for the company (tomorrow and Friday) but they are on-location productions at the client's site, so I will not be involved in anymore office shenanigans here after this afternoon.
I put my resignation in nearly 3 weeks ago to give my employer a little extra time to replace me (small company, it's harder to replace folks in a small company when each person wears so many different hats). It was time for change (a change unlike my recent post on Caleb's blog...but change nonetheless). I've spent enough time here, I did what I came to do, and now I'm moving on.
Having Caleb come into my life was the primary reason for me to depart. Hilary decided that she would go back to work after her leave of absence, and so the question of child care arose. In the end, however, we decided that I would leave the company to pursue TradeWind Productions from home while I raised our son. Financially, it isn't too bad of a stretch since child care is so expensive. Likewise, I've had a healthy amount of growth in my business so I will hopefully be able to sustain our current standard of living or possibly even better.
Even better, I'll still be acting as a subcontractor for the forseeable future with my soon-to-be past employer, so I'll still be able to make some decent money there. I won't be the "Production Manager" anymore, but I will be taking on the title of "Mr. Mom" instead, which I think is a pretty fair trade.
So with child in arm and camera on tripod, I will be making my departure today with a small box of wall hangings and desk paraphrenalia. It's been real. It's been fun. Can't say it was real fun, but maybe this next jaunt around the race track of life will prove more valuable than anything else I've done to date.
Here we go...
5.21.2008
5.05.2008
Walk Through the Fire
For those of you keeping score at home, it has been a little over a month now since I last posted on any blogs (including Caleb's blog). This has not been for lack of any interesting things to talk about, as I'll detail below.
Since this post is relevant for me personally and also about Caleb, I'm double posting it on both blog sites.
As of the date of my last post, my life changed a little bit. Not quite as drastic as the actual birth of my son, but mind-altering nonetheless. That evening of April 1st, Caleb's situation with the constant vomiting finally came to a head (see previous posts for more details). Around 11pm, we contacted the on-call nurse at our pediatrician and asked what could possibly be wrong with our little guy. All of a sudden, we get a diagnosis for something called "pyloric stenosis" which we had never ever heard of in our entire lives. Essentially, it's a condition where the muscle (pylorus) that allows food to flow from the stomach into the intestines becomes overgrown or swollen to the point that nothing - no food, no liquid - can pass through the system. This apparently started off relatively unnoticed when Caleb was born and became more pronounced in the ensuing weeks to the point that he was getting no hydration and no nourishment.
We don't know how much longer he would have actually survived with this condition. Suffice it to say that we left for the emergency room at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta within the hour to begin a crazy 5-day trip at the hospital that included multiple rooms for multiple days, a trip to the ICU and a simple surgery with scary unexpected complications - in fact, the complications were probably more disconcerting than the whole situation at the time, since we were expecting a straightforward procedure.
So when you come through the other side of this thing like we did, you can look back and feel quite blessed that you're all here to tell the story. At the same time, you can look at it all and say, "wow, THAT was close." It's scary to think what could have happened if the condition wasn't finally diagnosed correctly.
I thank God that all we're left with is a little surgical scar and some bad memories. And the results of the surgery are that we have a baby now that eats and eats and is growing bigger (not smaller) with each passing day. He's happy most of the time and just seems to enjoy life all the more because we're all here together.
There's a song that says "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." I would agree, but I'd add that sometimes you know exactly what you have once you just come close to losing it. Going through the fire and being able to hold on is an amazing blessing.
Since this post is relevant for me personally and also about Caleb, I'm double posting it on both blog sites.
As of the date of my last post, my life changed a little bit. Not quite as drastic as the actual birth of my son, but mind-altering nonetheless. That evening of April 1st, Caleb's situation with the constant vomiting finally came to a head (see previous posts for more details). Around 11pm, we contacted the on-call nurse at our pediatrician and asked what could possibly be wrong with our little guy. All of a sudden, we get a diagnosis for something called "pyloric stenosis" which we had never ever heard of in our entire lives. Essentially, it's a condition where the muscle (pylorus) that allows food to flow from the stomach into the intestines becomes overgrown or swollen to the point that nothing - no food, no liquid - can pass through the system. This apparently started off relatively unnoticed when Caleb was born and became more pronounced in the ensuing weeks to the point that he was getting no hydration and no nourishment.
We don't know how much longer he would have actually survived with this condition. Suffice it to say that we left for the emergency room at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta within the hour to begin a crazy 5-day trip at the hospital that included multiple rooms for multiple days, a trip to the ICU and a simple surgery with scary unexpected complications - in fact, the complications were probably more disconcerting than the whole situation at the time, since we were expecting a straightforward procedure.
So when you come through the other side of this thing like we did, you can look back and feel quite blessed that you're all here to tell the story. At the same time, you can look at it all and say, "wow, THAT was close." It's scary to think what could have happened if the condition wasn't finally diagnosed correctly.
I thank God that all we're left with is a little surgical scar and some bad memories. And the results of the surgery are that we have a baby now that eats and eats and is growing bigger (not smaller) with each passing day. He's happy most of the time and just seems to enjoy life all the more because we're all here together.
There's a song that says "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." I would agree, but I'd add that sometimes you know exactly what you have once you just come close to losing it. Going through the fire and being able to hold on is an amazing blessing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
