I haven’t posted anything to this blog in a really long time. A lot in life has changed, but I’m not really going to concern myself with too much of it. Here are the high points:

  * I'm now working at Red Hat. (Yay!)
  * Sam is 16 months old.
  * I finally pulled up all the ivy in my yard.
  * I'm learning to code with python and being somewhat successful with it.

Good! Now that we have all of that out of the way, it’s time to cover the real subject of today’s blog. Stephanie broke her kneecap.

You read that right. She broke her knee cap right in half. It may have been the most terrifying event of the year, and I have a sixteen month old that scares me nearly every day.

The day started normal enough. I kissed my beautiful wife and son goodbye and headed off to work in downtown Raleigh. Speaking of, it’s only twenty minutes away from me which is amazing. I got a call about an hour after I got the office with Stephanie on the other end. It wasn’t a cheerful or happy call that you would want to receive. It was that terrifying call that you never want to get as a husband. She was on the verge of tears and quickly told me, “I need help. I think I broke my knee.”

Well then. Holy crap.

I booked it home faster than I think I’ve ever gone. I broke all the speed limits I could break as long as the cars in front of me would allow. I wouldn’t advise this. I learned along the way that you can easily get a stress ulcer from trying desperately to spot all the police that might be on your path. Just don’t do it. I don’t know how people drive that way all the time and call it fun. It was awful. Maybe it was also crappy because I knew my wife was in the middle of the woods with my son and a broken knee.

Stephanie is tough as nails. I would have passed out if I had a knee cap that was broken in half, especially when it was so easy to tell what had happened. I got to her and found her and Sam watching cartoons on her phone. I have to hand it to the little guy. He was really good for a kid that had no idea what was going on and was sitting in the woods for nearly forty-five minutes.

Stephanie’s parents arrived about ten minutes after I did and we all worked together to hand out some tasks. I called 911, which was great because it gave me something to do. Doc check on her leg, and Stephanie’s mom took care of Sam for us. Ashley also helped bring some levity to the whole situation, which she’s awesome at. I had an awesome conversation with the 911 dispatcher and before we knew it, we had a ride to the hospital.

I had never ridden in an ambulance before. It wasn’t much different than riding in the cab of a U-Haul, but there were more needles, lights, and seats. The two EMTs that helped Stephanie were amazing and super helpful. I wish we didn’t need the ambulance, but there was no way of getting her out of there with her leg in the shape it was in. We could build a splint, but we had no way of getting some wheels.

The rest of the day was spent finding out that she had a broken patella and would likely need surgery to correct the damage. The weird part about all these shenanigans is that they won’t even see her at the orthopedist until Tuesday. How can you walk around with a broken patella for nearly a week? That just doesn’t make sense to me. I guess they know more about knees than I do though, so we’ll take it.

Stephanie’s spirits have been really high and I hope we can both stay that way. Not being able to walk is a super bummer. We have an amazing support system from everywhere though, and even though taking care of her and Sam will be a challenge, I think we can pull it off. I just hope these next couple months go by quickly so she can get back to doing normal things.

Huge thanks to all the well wishers today. It was a challenging and long day, but I’m glad we had wonderful people around to help us get through it. I’m also incredibly grateful to my boss at Red Hat for being understanding. I’ve only been there for three weeks and have already had to take time for a couple things that were out of my control. I like this job and definitely want to keep it!

Here’s to healing fast. Later!