Welcome to a Brave New World

My last blog post was on April 20, 2010.  Trip'n Daddy was fighting cancer. Life was too overwhelming to blog. 


A lot has happened since then and I think it is only fair to give you a timeline before a full relaunch of this blog.


I am sure that the full story will be flushed out as I move forward on the blog. 

• Summer, 2010 - Trip'n Daddy has a successful stem cell transplant and the Trips spend 8 weeks with Saba and Savta at AM and UM
• October, 2010 - Trip'n Daddy officially loses his job, just as he gets medical clearance to return. We decide to read the signs and finally make Aliyah in July, 2011.
• February, 2011 - Final tests results indicate that Trip'n Daddy is in remission. 
• March, 2011 - We leave on a 5 week pilot trip that will include Pesach with AM and UM. Trip'n Daddy has the okay from the doctors to go.
• April 7, 2011 - Trip'n Daddy has a really bad chest cold with some breathing problems. He is admitted to Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. 
• April 8, 2011 - He is intubated, medically sedated, and moved to ICU with a nasty cases of PCP pneumonia. 
• April 14, 2011 - We officially make Aliyah. We are not returning to the U.S. 
• Rest of April -May 24, 2011 - Trip'n Daddy fights for his life, including battling 3 different types of pneumonia. His heartbeat is strong until the rest of his body gives out. 
• May 25, 2011 - Trip'n Daddy is laid to rest on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.
• We start the rest of our lives. Stumbling in grief, but always looking up.

This blog is going to become something very different from what it was.  I plan on including creative writing entries along with the plain old blog posts. I know there will be tears, but I hope there will be laughs as well.

I am leaving all old posts as is, with the only differentiation being the formatting of the posts.  

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

One of the hardest things about returning to the US from Israel has been the return to the "holiday" season. When we left, there were whispers of Thanksgiving. We came back to full-on Christmas assault. Needless to say that we didn't really notice it was December in Israel.

As the Trips get older, they notice more and more. We needed to discuss Halloween this year, and I actually turned off a couple of Noggin shows. Santa is MUCH harder to avoid. A few of our neighbors are actually (gasp!) non-Jews, and generally put up tasteful decorations. Yesterday, the Trips were watching the lights go up as H was coming home from work. He was greeted at the door by them declaring "It's Christmas!"

Oy.

It is a great story to help me in my Aliyah campaign though!

We're Baaack!

So we've been home for a couple of days, and you would think things would be back to normal. I guess that depends on your definition of normal. A has not been to school yet, due to a funny little bug that starts with vomiting, moves on to a fever and congestion, and ends with a croup like cough. C had it too, but went back to school today. B is fine, if you call whining, kvetching, and beating on siblings fine. Ah, life with 4-year-olds. Oops, I mean 4 and 3/4...

Eruv Shabbos last week I received an upsetting email from my boss that included a list of all the projects that I was supposed to complete in the past year, but have not. I have never been one to deal well with failure, and this one hit especially hard. The fact that the email ommitted all the extras that I have done, and the real causes for the delay in the completion of those projects made it tougher to swallow. The advice I have received is "Don't respond, just get them done." It has made my return to work very hard.

The Mumbai Massacre reminds me that Jews are not safe ANYWHERE in the world. Aliyah is on my mind all the time.

Boy, this is a kvetchy post. Maybe I caught it from B! I guess I need 8 unpacked suitcases, a clean house, a stocked fridge, a good meal, feverless kids, and a full night's sleep...when is Shabbos?!