Madness.

I haven't written in a while... again. Things have been a LITTLE hectic. I'm sure everyone who reads this already knows that Ben's dad had a stroke around Thanksgiving. We've been spending every weekend visiting at the hospital, although we did carve out some time this past weekend for friends in the evenings. His dad is doing very well physically. The slurred speech that he had just after the stroke is all but gone, and he is slowly getting his strength back. He lives alone and laid on the floor for two days after falling during the stroke, so he was very dehydrated, malnourished, and in a lot of pain. He lost some muscle mass when his body started into starvation mode also, so it's been a long process getting him strong again. He's using a walker now (which he didn't need before) and is able to pull himself up off the bed and scoot around in the bed on his own - which is great since he could barely move on his own when he first got to the hospital. He's a GBMC on a rehab floor and has been there for a little over 2 weeks now. He does about three hours of therapy per day, including physical, occupational and speech therapy. They keep him busy, and it seems to be working well. He's actually having surgery today, in about half an hour, to clean out one of his blocked carotid arteries (which was probably the source of his stroke). Both are blocked - one completely, and the other about 90%. They're only operating on the 90%-blocked artery, because apparently once an artery is completely clogged, the plaque quickly builds up all the way to the brain and cleaning it out would be complicated and risky. There is still a small risk - about 5% - that he could have a stroke during this surgery. Since they're moving the plaque, there's always a risk that some of it could escape and travel to his brain. Please keep him in your prayers!

We got Ben's wedding band last week, which he's VERY happy with :) We had it special ordered and got a great deal on it (I saw it at Mervis for $795 and we got it for $490 with a hook-up from a friend!). It's palladium (similar to platinum but not as pricey!) with a hammered finish - just what he wanted. I'm really glad I was able to get him the one he wanted. He saw one just like it at Jared in white gold for $1199, which was the first one we found, and I was really worried that I'd end up either having to get him something else or break the bank. Also wedding-related, I found vases that will work for the centerpieces - very good news. They're about $2 more than I wanted to spend, but they've been so hard to find that I'm just going to suck it up and buy them. It's pretty hilarious that this is the kind of crap that makes it into my blog. Wow. We've also finished buying gifts for our bridesmaids and groomsmen, with the exception of a few loose ends. I've spent the last few months slowly collecting individual rhinestone pins for all of my bridesmaids to wear on their dresses. I'm so happy with them and I'm so glad I got a unique one for each girl - they're going to look great :) I just hope it's something they'll use later on. When I buy pins, I usually don't actually pin them on anything - I string them on a chain and wear them as necklaces. They usually make cute pendants.

In other news, I'm working on trying to line up a summer research job at UMD medical school. Once we're married, Ben and I hope to be living in White Marsh, which would be about an hour and a half commute for me, on a good day, to NIH in Bethesda where I work now. That idea doesn't exactly thrill me, to say the least. There isn't an official program for entering 1st year med students to do research, but I'm trying to get something set up through the director of student research. If I just wanted to volunteer it would be easy, but I REALLY need to be paid. Finding the funding is the difficult part, because the student research funding usually comes from the school, and I technically won't be a student there yet. As I'm sure you can tell, I've basically decided that I'm going to UMD :) I'm really happy about it! I guess at some point I just got over the stupid crap that kept me from being ecstatic about it, and now I'm darn near ECSTATIC!

I guess i'll stop babbling. This wasn't a very interesting post, I apologize :(

OH, one more thing, as of TODAY, Ben and I have been together for 8 1/2 years :) THAT'S something to smile about!