When my step daughter went to Hawaii last week she brought back with her a necklace that was a fish hook.

(Looks like this)

 She said that in Hawaii it was supposed to represent the provider.  I felt that described my husband very well.  He is and has always been the provider for our family.  I want to share with you about the man that I call my husband.  My husband was born in Virginia on December 19,1973, even though the social security office thinks he was born in 1974.  He was the 3^rd child of 5.  He has 1 older brother, an older sister and 2 younger brothers.  His child was very eventful, he lived to the fullest with his siblings!  His father was serving in the US. Navy and so when he was only 3 months old they made the move from Virginia to sunny San Diego CA!  His family would eventually move to “The city in the Country” or Poway, CA.  This little city was northeast of the city of San Diego but in the same county.  He has shared with me many stories about how it used to be exactly as the motto says, the city was nothing like you would think would be a place in San Diego!  It was the paradise for the people who loved the country living without moving far away from city life!  He was a wrestler in High School and I am told he was a very good one, his name even ended up in the San Diego Hall of Champions!  He eventually graduated high school, got married and had 2 beautiful children, Liliana and Marcus.  After about 19 years, his ex and him decided that they were better as friends and they chose to go their separate ways but stayed amicable for the kids.   2 years later I got hired on at Walmart where he was an assistant manager and we met.  We started off as friends, but slowly it started to change and I fell in love with him.  January of 2012 We became official and January of 2013 we moved in together.  He has always been an independent man, do things himself and didn’t like to ask for help.  When he got diagnosed with kidney disease it was tough.  He had a wife and a daughter that both wanted to take care of him, and that caused some drama at home.  Things at home started to calm down the more used to dialysis we got.  We started to get into a routine and it became easier until we realized that the type of dialysis he chose wasn’t the right fit for him.  We realized that to switch he needed to have a AV Fistula (Arteriovenous Fistula) placed so we made our way to the surgeons’ office and then we scheduled the surgery. The day before the surgery we got a call from the hospital stating that we would be required to pay close to $10,000 to have the surgery done.  We couldn’t afford that type of money so we postponed the surgery until we could figure it out. Finally, we figured out insurance and he went in for his surgery.  We knew that this would be the first of two surgeries.  The second surgery was 6 weeks after the first and everything seemed fine.  I couldn’t make it to the hospital due to me being at my externship for school.  I decided to go pick up Elizabeth for him while on my lunch when I got a call from him saying I should pick up Elizabeth (He didn’t know I was already on my way) because he just started bleeding from his surgery site and he had called 911. I was freaked out, picked up Elizabeth and called my dad, since we lived with them at the time and he was the one with him, to see where they were at.  The paramedics just checked his vitals and said that my dad would be able to drive him.  He made it to the hospital and everything was fine, something just slipped inside the surgery site. His surgeon scheduled us the next day for him to go back in and clean stuff out.  After that fiasco, everything went fine and he could begin training. Training consisted of him going to the dialysis clinic Monday-Friday to learn how to hook himself up successfully on his own.  The first week it was the nurse who hooked him up while explaining what she was doing and slowly but surely through the next 3-4 weeks he learned how to do it without the help of the nurse.  She also taught him troubleshooting as far as alarms on the machine and what to do in times of emergencies.  After the training was up, the nurse visited our home on our first day of dialysis at home and was there to make sure we could do what was learned in the training, successfully at home.   Luckily, even with the placement of his fistula he can pretty much do things on his own, just needs my help with the small stuff such as tape and throwing stuff away.  Even though he is considered “disabled” and I am his Caregiver, even though he hates that term, I am thankful that I have a man that pushes past that and doesn’t fully rely on the help of his wife allowing me to be more of a wife than a caregiver.