my incredible husband

its amazing. HE is amazing. Do I ever get mad at him? YES! Is he perfect? NO! How he maintains his even-keel attitude, low stress level and still manage to call me during the day and ask how I am doing is truly incredible.

Sunday night, Ava was having a baaaad night. She woke up 3 times crying, and each time I stumbled upstairs to comfort her and get her back to sleep. It was 1 am and Rich told me to bring her in bed with us if it happened again. Five minutes later she was screaming, and so I brought her to our bed. This is a big deal for Rich because while he knows SHE is more easily comforted, HE doesn't sleep well at all with all her tossing and turning.

I got her into bed, got her settled and 10 minutes later his pager went off. He glanced at it, called the number back, and talked to the ER dr. Then he flew out of bed (it was 130 am at this point) threw on his scrubs and was out the door. By the time he got back it was 3 am, and Ava was still restless in our bed. He tried to go back to sleep but I knew it was hard for him. His alarm went off at 6 am and he went to work for the day.

When he returned last night at 9 pm he said it had been a rough day. That was it.....he was tired and described the day as rough, but he had a smile on his face. I knew he was functioning on only a few hrs of sleep and had been in the hospital 14 hrs straight, and somehow he wasn't even grouchy.

I asked about the person at 130 in the morning. He said it was horrible. The ER dr KNEW the patient was having a heart attack, and a quick EKG showed big trouble so he called Rich. When Rich got there, the ER was still trying to stabilize the patient for a heart cath so Rich could open up the artery. The patient coded and Rich was helping work on him, but he passed away and never was even stable enough for the procedure. He was only in his 60's. If I had even so much as witnessed that I would have been in a bad mood for a week. He was sad about it and we talked about it for awhile. It affects him but doesn't paralyze him. Situations like that change him somehow by retaining the lessons to be learned from it, and leaving all the fears, anger and unfairness by the wayside. He has a gift for taking the good things out of a situation and recognizing the bad but not letting them define him.

I am so thankful for having him in my life. He is my rock and I don't tell him often enough.