OT - Describe Your Most Extreme Day
Mates,
Sunday, a day of rest during a holiday where we honor our fallen heroes, talk about your most 'Extreme' day - by that I mean the day you were at your upper limit of happiest, but it can also be an 'extreme' day as in a day you were, say, the coldest, or most anxious or tired, or even something more dramatic like the most exciting or most dangerous thing you have ever done or possibly the saddest day if you care to share that.
('drunkest' day not included, unless it coincides with one of the other 'est' days)
but i have waded in prudhoe bay, but not in ice chunks. very cool video.
have taken live fire in my old life, but things are much more calm now. have had lots of encounters with bear (mostly griz), some pretty hairy, harvested some too, but most of those contacts were by plan/intent.
i am so enjoying these stories though. however, my heart goes out to a number of our fellow mgobloggers - God bless you guys/gals with some of the difficulties you are/have faced. persevere!
now that you mention it, there is one humorous story when i caught a live king salmon while swimming out in front of my office a few years back. try fighting one of those things with your bare, wet hands. and yes, there are pictures to prove it. the fish payback was even better - a giant she-bass bit me in nearly the exact same place that i'd caught the king salmon a couple of years later. drew blood, she did.
Well, certainly the most emotionally jarring day for me thus far in life - if this counts as extreme somehow - was probably the day one of my sisters died back in 2012. She had been having issues with drugs really since high school and despite numerous attempts to help her over the years, my parents and others could never get her to stay clean for very long.
She did die of an overdose - people who say "cocaine is a hell of a drug" are right, especially when you were doing Special K and downing some Jack for good measure. What makes it emotionally extreme is that A) it was my parents who found her, and B) at no point despite it all did losing a sibling cross my mind because as troubled as she was, I was still hopeful she could get out of it.
I was as shocked as I was saddened that I suddenly found myself the oldest brother of one and that my parents had to face the one thing I am sure they never cosidered - outliving one of their own children. October 10th, 2012 i s perhaps the most extreme day of my life on an emotional level, I suppose.
My surviving sister, whose work some of you know from cons or the Internet, actually have begun to outline a book on what it is like to live with some who has addiction issues of that scale, and from such a young age. Catharsis, if you will, and much needed.
I'm so sorry for your loss. My youngest brother has struggled with drug addiction (heroin, crack, freebasing, and pretty much anything he can get his hands on) and severe mental illness for years. He's nearly died at least twice -- spent two weeks in a coma the summer before last after OD'ing and jumping out a window, and another couple of days in a coma earlier this year after OD'ing and somehow shattering his leg before being found by two strangers -- and I have the fear of his death at the back of my mind every day, even when he seems to be doing comparatively well.
Hope you and your family have found some measure of peace in the years since your sister's death.
glad you are here to blog about it.
A cross-eyed Lieutenant claimed he got the wrong coordinates, and fired for effect. We screamed Hellen Keller on the radio and got the hell out of there as fast as possible. It was A DAMN CLOSE CALL. I had shrapnel in my gear and vehicles. We were just lucky (or unlucky?) that day.
Chesty mustve been watching over you that day. Glad you are safe. PS....I hate lieutenants.
I worked at the Trade Center and never made it past Journal Square in Jersey City. I could see the buildings on fire from there though. When One collasped, I thought everyone I worked with had died in that moment, though, thankfully, to my everlasting relief, this turned out not to be true. Given the immediate and lasting aftermath, that was probably my most extreme day.
A few years ago I had a child born at 25 weeks. He is alive, and doing pretty well, but it was a rocky start. For those unfamiliar, a normal human gestation is closer to 40 weeks, making this kid a full 4 months early. My wife unexpectedly developed a condition making her pregnancy life-threatening. The medical community prioritizes the life of the mother in these cases, and since we also have an older child, that's the way to go. Our son had to be delivered.
He didn't have a name yet, since, well, we thought we had 4 months, and just a week earlier we found out he was a boy. My wife was already at the hospital (due to the condition) and I had just dropped the oldest off at the grandparents, and knew I had to make up a name. I text messaged it to my wife from the grandparents before I could jump back in the car and go at dangerous speeds to the hospital.
He was 1 pound, 5 ounces when he was born via emergency c-section. You didn't think that was possible? Neither did I. In the operating room, the Dr popped her head up asking if I wanted to stay with my wife or go with my son to the NICU. How the hell do you make that choice? Somehow I managed to get a perfect, but jarring, shocking, stunning photo of him in the NICU, even though I was shaking and freaking out. I don't remember taking this photo, but its incredible. Apparently I cut his umbilical cord too. I ended up following a crew of about 10 taking my kid in to the NICU. Once there, after getting him stabilized, a few of them started working on me.
I remember very little of that day other than what I described, and that was all within a 4 hour window between 7 and 11 am. Big chunks of the year to follow are also completely gone from my memory. That was an extreme day.
My boy spent 11 months in the NICU. He came home and has made progress. He is doing okay, and despite being well behind a "normal" kid he could have a reasonably normal life. Being his Dad, along with his big brother's Dad, is the most important thing that has ever happened in my life. Extreme parenting, I guess.
I managed to DVR every Michigan basketball game that winter, and I would watch them later at night when getting back from the NICU. This was a huge escape for me. I actually started to think the Final Four run was a God thing happening for us. Freaking Louisville.
The moral of the story is to turn the ringer *off*? Wouldn't you have been sleeping peacefully while the tornado came down on your house, or am I reading that wrong?
I had to head to Arizona for a few days for work. When I left I thought everything was good. When I returned home my wife told me she was no longer in love with me and wanted a divorce. She swore there was no one else. We spent the next 2 days talking about things and she said she wanted to try to work it out. The following day I found out she had been having an affair with a coworker and that while I was out of town she had him in our bed. She had also invited him over to spend time with her and our kids, which thankfully he turned down. I also found out they had been screwing around while at work so almost everythime she went to work I was having panic attacks. She kept telling me she wanted to work it out but the minute she left the house she would call and text him telling him it was over between her and I and she wanted to be with him. This went on for about 2 weeks until she finally broke it off with him and decided she really wanted to work it out with me. We are currently in marraige counseling trying to repair our marriage. Been a rough spring.
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The worst is behind you. Stay strong.
In 2011, whilst monitoring my youngest daughters internet usage I came across a message she had posted to an internet advice blog for adolescents. The gist of the message was that she was feeling suicidal because her mom was cheating on dad and being dishonest about it. Apparently all my children knew, had confronted her repeatedly, but yada yada yada.
I was humiliated and crushed. My identity was built arounf being a family man. I thought my life was over and experienced a real world bout with depression. Fast forward to today; my life is better than ever. My relationship with my kids is great. I'm getting clear of the financial burden of the divorce and I'm in a relationship with a really incredible person.
Keep showing up - life gets better for the willing.
Post Script: To this day my ex denies there was an affair, but is in a toxic and bizarre on-again off-again relationship with her paramour. My kids have no respect for her whatsoever.
Your point about the kids is important. Parents often say it's better to stay together for the kids. But that's far from the truth. Kids would rather have two happy parents that are functional than (or at least one) be in a family that is dysfunctional, that is full of deceit and/or where the parents are just not happy. Kids usually blame themselves. And what is the role model for their own life. Your kid who said they were "suicidal" isn't the exception.
...quite some time ago. The lying is worse than the cheating. I decided to forgive her. And to work it out and to trust her, the only really option was to take a leap of faith. She can't earn it back. So there is that. But...
It was good for a while. But eventually I learned after trying for a long time that people don't change. I hear guys always tend to think they can fix things. They are more willing to try to work it out. Well, it took too long and many wasted years for me to learn that people rarely change. And I'm finally moving on.
ottomatic has it right. I know lots of guys that wished they moved on sooner.
The worst time is not the cheating. It's deciding to move on. The best time comes after you've moved on.
I don't know your situation or you. But I do know you deserve better!
We were exercising freedom of navigation off the Crimean Peninsula, and the Soviets came out with much of their Black Sea Fleet and several combat loaded Hind helicopters and did this to us. A military law brief on the legality of what we were doing can be found here.
One of the Quartermasters Mates (navigation specialists) who was on Yorktown the same time I was connected on facebook a few months back. We caught up by phone, and in the course of a 45 minute conversation recalled three separate occasions we were lucky to escape alive from - none of our sea time was combat operations.
I don't understand why the Navy dropped the "not just a job, it's an adventure" campaign. For a 22 year old junior office, and an 18 year old kid from Trinidad, those were great times.
what about the ruskie boat? seems like it was a fool's errand.
that'd been a life-fire drill, pronto.
Leading my tank platoon on an after midnight quick reaction force (QRF) mission in Bosnia. The report given was there were vehicles sighted heading to one of our Battalion's checkpoints and my platoon was being sent in to support.
Either the Company Commander or the Battalion S-3 (operations officer) misread the map and vectored my platoon on a road/trail that hadn't been cleared (i.e. checked for landmines). Standing orders were to never travel on an uncleared route. When I tried to question the routing, I was told, basically, to "shut up lieutenant and move out.” The pucker-factor was high as we crept along in the dark, straining our eyes for anti-tank mines (and hoping none were buried or under the snow or under the road).
We didn’t hit any mines and we finally linked up with the infantry platoon on the checkpoint. Then higher informed me that this “test mission” of the QRF was complete.
Let’s just say I was a bit pissed that we risked our posteriors on a mistake in test mission, but no more pissed than the joes in my platoon. I might have even learned some new words that night . . .
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