Balancing Life, Family and Responsibilities: Strength Amidst Chaos 171

Today on Share, the Spargel podcast, that tightrope act continues as I navigate wants, needs and desires, prioritizing life in business with a most important thing in life family. Let me tell you something Everybody's drug. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. If you find strength in the struggle and this podcast is for you you have a relationship that is comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. Uncomfortable conversations challenge you, humble you and they build you. When you sprinkle a little time and distance on it, it all makes sense. Most disagreements, they stem from our own insecurities. You are right where you need to be. Oh, what it do, what it do, hi damn man. I'm so excited to be back with you. I'm blessed to be with you y'all. 171 consecutive weeks, 171 and I personally like to think the fun has just begun because we ain't going nowhere, y'all. We ain't going nowhere. What's taking together, you and me? Let's talk together, me and you like glue, like a fine super glue. You know what I mean. Just Type of super glue you don't want to get in your eye, which I don't think you want to get any super glue in your eye, which actually I've done that before, not even not kidding. Not kidding for one, one second. That's a little fun fact. I don't know why. I just thought of this or this, just this just happened naturally. This is what happens when I push record. Sometimes I just start off rambling and I just say things as they percolate in my brain cells and Apparently I percolated some super glue. So when I was a kid I was using some super glue for something, and I don't know why, but Maybe I was, you know, building model airplanes as a Chris Farley line for you there. Maybe I was building model airplanes as a kid, which probably wouldn't have been planes. It would have been like Something more redneck, would have been like, yeah, you know, monster trucks and T birds. I don't know something, although I was never a Ford guy. So anyways, I don't want to trail off here, squirrel. The point I'm trying to make is I must have been building something and I thought that I needed to puncture the side of the super glue With maybe a needle of sorts, I don't know. But the next time I'm using said super glue, I forget about said puncture, wound, and I'm building something, I'm repairing something. You know something brilliant, because I'm Clearly an overachiever as a kid. Let's cut to the chase. You know what I'm saying. So I'm building something, but if y'all have ever worked with those little tiny bottles of super glue, it's hard to see, man, it's, it's hard to navigate right there. They're tiny, look a little little little tiny, little tiny tips. You know me there, they're really hard, hard to see. So, wow, lack of sleep, much Jethro, losing control over here. You guys think that maybe I have ADD. I mean, my math skills never been strong, so adding is really kind of out of the question. But I Am lost, right? You guys feel that? Am I making you nervous? Are you uncomfortable? I'm hot. Are you hot? Are you sweating? Hmm, anyways, what was I talking about? Glue? So the bottle is so damn small. You got to get close, like you got to get down there sometimes, which is a dangerous maneuver. But for me to see the fine line, tiny project that I had been working on, I got real close. Okay, imagine me fingers, pointer, finger, right, thumb pressure together, pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch, firmly compressing down on the super glue bottle and Squish and squish. It's like a? So like a jolly wrench, a commercial these days, or something. Stop, or us, I don't know. So I'm squishing, I'm pressing, I'm compressing, okay, and I got my face super close to the project. No joke, super glue shoots out of the side of the tube, you know, possibly out the puncture wound area right into my fucking eye. I start screaming and during the instant screaming process I drop the tube, take me fingers me, pinch her in my thumb, go right to my eyelid and keep that son of a bitch open and Then start yelling like I don't, I don't want to blink and I don't want to give my eyelids the opportunity to blink. So I'm holding those bad boys open and I'm yelling and my mom's like what is going on here, what is a matter, and I'm trying to explain to her, and she's like to the faucet and just throws my head under the sink while I'm still separating eyelids, just jumping water into my eyeballs and then the fear of God sets in, as you're still, even after two and a half gallons of you know Fresh well water, just about blows out your retina, compresses your cornea. You're, you're like, I'm still a little nervous. I'm still a little nervous to Let my lids go and have those babies stick together forever. So I Was okay. I was okay and I'm here to talk about it, and that was a long time ago. Just like, this episode is 171 episodes from the first one. See what I mean about me not being so good on math. That was so. That should have been 170. But you guys, you know. You know what I'm saying. If I'm rambling and confusing you, I hope you're getting a good laugh out of this, but this is what's going on in my mind these days. This is the hamster wheel that's operating in my dome, because I'm having a hell of a time Navigating wants, needs, desires, responsibilities, hopes, dreams, aspirations and all those things. With an obligation, with a family obligation, with an important task, with the most important task of spending time with my dad and trying to Pray each and every day and in so many ways to get him strong and to get him healthy. It's really hard to Compartmentalize your brain and say to yourself okay, this is the time of the day where you need to focus on business, this is the time of the day when you need to focus on just you know your general to-do list and this is the time of the day where you just need to Just be present with your old man and and take the time. It's really hard. It is really freaking hard to navigate these waters and to walk this tightrope and and balance these emotions. And if you can hear from the jumbled mix-up mayhem that we've used to start today's show, obviously it's fully intended to be a funny intro, but it's a sneak peek man beneath the sheets. It's a peeling back of the onion to see what's going on in my squash. I don't mean to mix up vegetables here. I mean, who am I? But the point is I can't even control my thoughts like my. My brain capacity, whatever that might be is, is minimal man. It's like scrambled eggs. I can't function like I can't Stay on task right, like I'm doing things and I'm trying to get things done, but it's extremely, extremely difficult to To just stay focused, is extremely difficult to stay on one task, and then you get the overwhelming sense of being disorganized and of feeling paralyzed by everything that surrounds you because you feel like you're to do you to do list, of slipping away right. You feel like the Things that you need to do beyond to do list, beyond those wish list items, the things that you have to control, feel like they're out of your control, because the most important thing you can't control, right, like if I'm gonna look at what needs to be done and everything that needs to happen and what needs to go on in my life. The most important thing in my life is the health and well-being of my dad, and if you guys didn't listen the last week's episode, then this is gonna come off a little bit wacky, right, because you don't really know what the hell I'm talking about. So if you have not listened the last week's episode number one, thank you for tuning in this week. Thank you for this possibly potentially being the first episode you've ever listened to to share the struggle podcast. So if that is you, I welcome you and I thank you. If you're one of the day ones, one of the loyal ones, one of the ones that have been it's just the beginning number one, throw that finger up. Y'all okay, put that number one finger up. Give yourself a big old. How do you do kudos, kudu, how do you do good? Anyways, I thank you for me to you, because I appreciate you for tuning in, for listening, to always being in my corner supporting this show, in this brand. I thank you. But for those of you that are just tuning in, you might want to go back to last week's episode to fully understand when we're headed today and some of the challenges that I've, that I'm having. But if you're, if you're already excited and you're already dialed in and you're listening and you don't want to change the dial, you don't want to go back a week. I'm just gonna let you know in a little sneak peek that my dad, my dad, got real sick. I was on the road at the Freiburg fair. I got a phone call from my neighbor, aka the one I call uncle Mike, saying that my dad had collapsed at a flea market. He was coughing up blood. You know long to short of it. Him and my wife get him to the hospital or in the hospital and get him to stay there. They uncover the fact that part of his intestines had ruptured, detached from the colon. Rushes in for emergency surgery, also while being cautious the possibility he probably had a stroke or a heart attack previous. You know being worried of potentially blood clots in his lung. Then, after the surgery and getting him recovered, things are going well and he flat lines. He has a heart attack and has to be resuscitated and brought back at the hospital, and currently he's still in. I saw the main hospital, but nothing but great news right now. Okay, extremely encouraging news, things that we're super excited about and To kind of get you up to speed as to what's going on and how things are going right now for my dad. He's doing great. He really is. Right now we're trying to get his kidneys to Be a little bit stronger. So he went into not necessarily kidney, kidney failure, but his kidneys were failing him. So I guess there's a big difference there and what I'm getting at is that they need his kidneys to hit a certain level of strength where he can move on for further testing. So Ideally, what we're trying to do is to try to move him from Southern Maine Hospital to Maine Health and Portland, which Portland really specializes in in heart procedures, and there's an amazing team there which I'm gonna say big, big old, straight up winning Wednesday weekly shout out kudos to all the staff. That's all the Maine Health. You know number four, the fourth floor special care unit. They've been amazing. They truly have. My dad can be hard to handle and these girls have done a great job just getting him comfortable and most of them have been able to, you know, really crack the shell and to get him to joke around. And it's surprising because we're always fearful of how my dad's gonna, you know, be over the top and treat people and yell at people. And you know it's a guessing game, okay, it's a scratch ticket, but it's crazy to me that every time I walk in there the girls are like man, you know, we've been laughing all day, we've been laughing all night. Your, your dad's so sweet, you know, and we're like same same guy, like you got the room numbers mixed up. I'm not not real short, but he can yell at them, but with a smile. So they think it's hilarious, it's, it's a sight to see, it is a sight to see. But kudos and thank you to all those hard workers on the fourth floor man special care unit. It's, it's been awesome. I know some of my dad's favorite nurses and doctors Kim and Karen, and there's a lady that he calls grandma, which is well younger than him. So that's probably rather offensive, but there's this, a bunch of them, myra, who's a friend of my wife and and myself. So pretty, pretty cool man. I don't, he gets, he gets like four to six nurses a day, so I don't remember all their names except for the ones that you know, you see repeatedly, but super encouraging and thankful for for that. You know. So that that part of it's all amazing. But we're also trying to transfer him from Bideford to Portland because that's where the heart specialist are, that's where the cardiology team really excels. And At this point we're really under the assumption that he probably has some kind of blockage and maybe he needs a stint or maybe he needs a defibrillator. But in order to determine that, they're gonna have to go to Portland and run this test. And this test basically injects a dye into your body but it's really challenging for the kidneys. It's hard for the kidneys to process this dye, so this test can be dangerous. If you Do this test and the kidneys aren't strong enough, you could need dialysis for you know, maybe a few times, maybe for all the time, you don't really know, and you also don't want to put somebody into kidney failure over a heart test. So there's a lot of questions that are going into that to determine, you know, is he healthy enough? Can this happen? They've also discussed whether they would move on without Doing the test and just go in there and see what they have to do. But his blood platelet count is rather low as well, so the platelets also thicken your blood. So if his blood's really thin, they don't want to have any Situation of him bleeding out or causing any kind of clotting or having stints to fail. So there's a lot of moving parts. So it's great that he's getting better every day. It's rather discouraging for him because we're at this point right now where every night at about like 11 or 12 o'clock at night, they cut him off from from food and water and all those things, and Because they don't know if he's gonna go in for surgery the next day, so they basically shut everything off. But what's happened over the past couple days is my dad prepares for surgery. He, you know, has this, this, you know, block of time eight, ten hours, whatever, where he doesn't eat, he doesn't drink, just in case they could transform to Portland. As soon as he goes to Portland he's gonna have the test and whatever the test reveals is is instantly off to, you know, surgery, right, it's, it's gonna be that quick. So he's nervous, he's scared, but he's excited, right, he wants to come home and he feels confident about the surgery and the things that Are gonna happen. So, um, what I can tell you is what's extremely challenging is him getting ready and putting all of his eggs in that basket that he's gonna Leave the next day and he's gonna go on for surgery and everything's gonna be great in the next morning. You get there and he's not going anywhere. It's extremely disappointing for him and then you have to almost explain everything to him all over again because you know he's it's tough. It's tough. It's tough to see him Encouraged and feeling great when you leave at night and in the morning, dealing with the disappointment and then having to explain to him that it could be a Day, it could be three days, it could be a week you don't, you don't know, and that's. That's a real challenge. But you also don't want to rush things, man. You don't want to have that Procedure happen too soon and risk anything. So there's a real fine line balancing act and I'm thankful that you know that his care team is really Just looking out for for the his health, well-being and long-term prognosis. Right, it's not about just making him happy today and getting him out the door today. It's about making sure that he's right to go out the door today so that they can, you know, give him the best opportunity for more days. So we just keep praying and for that man we just keep, just keep praying and you know I feel like it's gonna be any day right, it's gonna be any day. We're just trying to Hope and pray that. You know that it's soon right, and I also have to weigh the challenges and obligations that I have. Like Friday I have a wedding rehearsal. I'm about to marry two really good friends of mine and also not only do their ceremony but do their actual entertainment, wedding reception portion of things. So Saturday is a wedding, friday's rehearsal. So Friday early afternoon I got to go to a wedding rehearsal and then from there go to Bentley's saloon and DJ at the saloon for the Loud Pound American night, the final Dance party night of the season. So we're gonna do the dance party night from 7 to 11. I'll get home 12, 1 o'clock, whatever, and then I'll get up and then go do the wedding. So I have these couple of days of responsibility that Is is weighing on me that I've I've agreed to right and I'm gonna fulfill my obligations, I'm gonna make this work. I'm just really hoping, pray that my dad gets to Portland and and we get these procedures taken care of before then and then he's just in recovery mode. I'll feel a heck of a lot better about things if that's, if that's the case. But that's really a taste of the things that are going on in my mind that I have to navigate. Like right now I need to find the time to write an entire wedding ceremony, to write, you know, the vows and all those things. I got to take the time to carve all those things out and you know I packed up a book bag full of full of accessories, right between Laptop and things to do for work and then all my stuff to write write an actual wedding ceremony, my computer to Work on the music for the ceremony, to organize things for the saloon. So when the opportunity Comes where my dad gets to move, when he goes into surgery, I'm gonna stay right there in the hospital and just start working. I'm gonna be working in, praying, you know, and just hoping for that, for the best, and and just trying to Keep my mind busy during those times. So it all kind of goes hand-in-hand, but it's just navigating all these things and staying focused and committed and staying Just level-headed and clear-minded. And it's not easy. It's not. It's not easy because all you can think about is your dad and then in those moments when you're not, when you're trying to be like, okay, you got to get back to business, I Think about this massive list that I have to do right and everybody's gonna listen to this and say that list will be there. Man, you need to make sure your dad's gonna be there, but that list will always be there. But I want you guys to understand about my list is that all year long I kick everything down the down the road. Right, I had this list of outdoor farm projects I need to be done. All these things that need to happen and outdoor projects I need to happen for the business and big decisions for the business between possibly selling the ambulance, buying a new box truck, getting a storage Set up, whether it's a a new building, whether it's a tractor, trailer truck, you know, bring it in gravel, setting things up so you can drop those buildings level on our barn, building hay structures All these things that need to happen before the snow flies. You have that list. I still have a truck load of things coming from the Freiburg fair because I haven't even had time to unload my truck. I have a list of custom orders stacking up that I need to take care of. I have all these things that are encouraging, things, that are great things. But I usually handle all those things in these couple of weeks after the fair, before the snow flies, before those things you know happen, and I've done my best to Try to keep that stuff off my plate as best I can and spend time with my dad and then in between, try to navigate some of those things right? So what happens is now is, in the morning, me, my mom, go to see my dad first thing in the morning. We spend a few hours with him and then he decides that he's gonna kick us out. He wants to take a nap. He's got other tasks to do. They're gonna, you know, wash him or train him on things, all those different things. So, basically, there's a few hours in the middle of the day where my dad's like, get the hell out here and go do something, and when he kicks us out, you go home and you try to navigate something, you try to get something done, but you're exhausted, like you're physically, emotionally exhausted from this just emotional tug of war that you're dealing with. So you're navigating all that, you get home and then you just you run headfirst at trying to do something and you look at your list and you got two million things and you're like, what can I get done today? And I tend to feel better when I can get handsy. You guys have heard me say that before. But I feel better when I can get my hands on something, when I can actually Try to accomplish something. So if I could take a big project off the list, maybe get something physical off the list, because it makes me feel better to get physical and just to make things happen. So I try to attack some of those things. So I've been attacking, weed whacking and doing different things just because I'm like, all right, let me just get physical, let me just get something done. I got to work in the field for the horse, clear some things up before the snow. So I'm out there Doing some of those things and then it's like, all right, I got to work on the driveway and this and what I'm gonna tell you is the projects that you should get done in one day. I'm still working on like they're a weekend. I think I've blown up a lawnmower three or four times. I've taken the fucking thing apart six times and I'm to the point now where this is just a lawnmower that we use to haul little trailers around and such. I can't haul one cinder block around without that thing wanting to completely grenade. Okay so, and the wife's mad because that's you know, that's, that's her lawnmower. So, anyways, I digress. I'm breaking equipment real hard on machinery at this moment in time, but nothing's getting done. As much as you try, it's not getting done. So you move five steps, you break something, you go ten steps back. Just this is the constant battle, right? And I found myself Working on these projects that I'm three days in and on something that I should have had done in an afternoon. But even when you start to have success and you're starting to get things done on your projects, you look at the clock and go shit, time to go back to the hospital. So I'm gonna stop everything I'm doing and I'm gonna fly back to the hospital and spend more time with my old man, which is what's important. But you're not getting any of those things done. So then you go back the next day and you try to repeat it, you try to start over again and you just keep pounding your head into the same wall and you just keep the same things on the same list and they just keep adding up and you just keep looking at them and I Understand there's there's a level of importance and those things might not be as important, but there's a thing that it does to your mind. There's a there's a weight that gets put on your shoulders when you continually try to complete a task but it doesn't go anywhere. You continually try to Defeat a list but it just keeps getting longer. And every time you try to put your attention into that, you can't help but think about being there with your dad. And then, when you get there with your dad, you want to focus all your time on him, but you're thinking about the things in the back of your mind that need to get done. And I do the best I can to be completely present and that's what I always do for my dad. But when he's watching TV or whatever, you're doing research and you're going through your list and you're trying to figure things out and you're trying to navigate those waters. So it's tough and for a lot of people that are listening and you might say, hey, man, just don't even worry about that shit. Pick up on that in a month. Whatever it is. What you need to understand is I'm a business owner, this is my business. It's like closing my business for a month or two, when my business is the only thing that pays my bills right, it's not like I work for somebody and I could put in a week's vacation, or I could put in two weeks vacation and I'm going to get that pay time off. It's not like that business continues to make money. I don't have employees that keep my business rolling. I don't have a team that keeps my business rolling. I don't have a boss that I can ask for pay time off. I don't have those things. You can't unplug, you can't disconnect. That's one of the things about being a small business owner is it's your life, it's every day of your life, so something has to happen. That needle needs to move every single day of your life. So it's incredibly challenging right now to keep the business operating, to keep it alive, to keep your mind mentally focused enough to make those business decisions, cause right now I'm so cluttered that you want to jump on a decision and then you either don't do it fast enough, so you lose the opportunity, or you overanalyze and then you don't make the decision right. So that's incredibly tough and I'm thinking about the farm things that have to happen and like, for example, I found this small tractor that I could actually finally afford, but I overanalyzed the decision on marketplace for an hour because it was trying to navigate what's right for my family and what the business needs and when I've been looking for this opportunity for years, right, and then there's finally one sitting there but I don't have the mental capacity at this moment to make the executive decision right. So I hum and haw and I wait around and I send a message an hour later and by morning I find out that it's already sold. So you lose your opportunity. And that's what happens when you just can't release the fog. You can't just focus on that one thing at a time. So my way of doing this is to just get one foot in front of the other and just purposeful movement, and I've said it to you guys many times just about moving forward, and I hope that this is the sign. I hope that this is the underlying sign and message for today's episode that no matter how big your task list is, no matter how demanding your life must do is are it's one foot in the forward man, it's purposeful movement, no matter what the challenges are. Number one you gotta prioritize things and we know at the top of our list is family. It always is family when it's important, family, when it's the family that you care about. We all have family that wouldn't stop for you. We all have family that barely say how do you do? Don't put your world on pause for them, right, but the ones that made you, that creates you, that molds you, and they might not have given birth to you but they raised you. Because if some of you out there listening right now that don't have the relationship with the ones that birthed you, but there's some that raised you, your world stops for them. You understand what I'm saying. My world stops for my parents and that's where I'm at. But I also have my dad saying don't give up on everything. You have to do to sit here and watch the news with me and I don't wanna lose those opportunities. I don't wanna lose those times. But he's right on a never. I need to navigate my responsibility. So it's incredibly challenging, y'all. It's incredibly challenging, but the importance, the priority, is my dad and his health and everything else trickle down from there and you have to do the best you can to navigate those, those just wavy waters, right. So, purposeful movement you just gotta move and you just gotta do something and at the end of the day, if you didn't get much done, you gotta analyze what you did get done and move on. And that's what I'm trying to do. That is what I'm trying to do each and every damn day, and it hasn't been easy. And it's one of those things where I consider myself to be pretty well focused and mentally sharp. And it's a struggle right now. It's an absolute struggle to stay focused, to stay on task. And if you go back to the beginning of this show, when you heard me just mumbling and stumbling and going all around and chasing squirrels on a hamster wheel, you realize that that's what's going on in my brain. Man, it's really hard to stay focused. It's really hard to stay committed on one task because, as bad as I want my business to succeed, as bad as I want my farm to be in the best position as possible for the winter, the most important thing is to know that my dad's here and that he's happy and that he's healthy and we have an opportunity to make more memories. So that's the most important thing. It's just navigating the rest of it. Oh man, hang on a second here, guys, I just got a text message from my mom. While we're recording here, they have a bed opening. He's going today. My dad is being transferred to Portland today, as I'm recording this podcast and finding out that my dad is transferring Is that a word? Transferring transferring to Portland today. Sorry, I'm just texting back and forth with her. Wow, okay, you guys probably hear me type in at the same time here I'm trying to navigate this. But great news y'all my dad is moving today. He's going to the Portland Hospital today and, man, time to pray today. Time to pray today because I'm Gonna be praying as hard as I possibly can that that he gets moved and these tests go well and we figure things out. Man, this is happening real time for you guys. So it's hard to Hard to explain and I'm just gonna try to flood some emotions out here real quick and tell you that you know for that. The past several days, half a week, week, whatever it might be all we've been doing is hoping and praying for him to get transferred and To go through the testing and now that's happening and that's great, that's super great. You get this. I have these chills and this rush of emotion that runs through my, my body right now. There's these tingling sensations and and and feelings, because the seriousness of what's about to happen is here. You know what I'm saying. Like, man, this is a this is happening real time. Share the struggle. I'm sharing the struggle with y'all Right now it I'm scared as fuck. Okay, because I've been excited. This is really weird, man. This is really weird because this whole time I've been Hoping and praying for this moment and my dad needs this and this is what he's wanted and this is what we've been praying for. And now that's happening and you're so grateful for that. But you're scared because this is a big test and it's the test that all these doctors have been telling me Can be dangerous if his kidneys aren't correct. So the fact we've taken the time and we've given it the time for him to heal and recover as much as possible, you hope and pray that they're making that call and that's the right call and we're thankful for that time right. But the seriousness of what's about to happen also kicks in because, number one, you hope and pray that test goes well and that you know you don't have a need for dialysis or anything for the kidneys post test. And then you're praying about what's going to be revealed, what's the results going to be, and then you want that test to Number one, reveal those things and then then the the severity and the realness, the raw feeling of the fact that my dad would, could possibly be having open heart surgery later today. Crazy, absolutely crazy. Deep breath. This is what we've been waiting for, y'all it's. It's crazy because you don't, for a half a second you almost feel hypocritical, like whoa, okay, okay, this is happening, oh, it's happening, sweetheart. But it's a whirlwind of emotions, man, because this is the moment you waited for, but it's the moment you're nervous for you understand what I'm saying because you don't know what's gonna happen. I've got, I've got a big, big remainder of the day ahead of me, okay, a big remainder of the day, a challenging part of the day, whoo. So I got a list of some cool things that I wanted to talk about today, some positive, some positive things that I didn't get a chance to recap from the fair that I wanted to put out there last week, but we started talking about them. You know, my family and my dad's health and all those things, and we had to put those, some of those positives, on the back burner and I Wanted to talk about those today but I can't, I can't, I can't talk about those today. We're gonna have to get to those next week because, as I'm reading this, the Portland Hospital has opened up a bed and we're getting an ambulance and we're leaving in less than a half an hour. So I Will not have time to talk about those other topics today. I won't even have time to finish everything that's on my mind today because I'm gonna have to wrap this up and get and get rolling today. So, man, yeah, I didn't expect this to happen, but I'm recording this on Tuesday and these episodes come out, they drop in, on a Tuesday night and then they get available for y'all on Wednesday. So I won't have time to Come back and record more today. I won't have time to record and edit and figure those things out, because I don't know what's ahead of us today. So I'm gonna have to wrap up today's episode and get this out there to you guys so you can kind of know what I'm feeling and experiencing, and then next week we're gonna recap you on, give you the update and let you know how today went on, how things went for my dad, where we're at, how how things are going, hopefully by this time next week and I'm recording my dad's home and he's recovering, and that's what we're gonna pray for and that's what we're gonna look forward to today and next week. I'm also gonna talk to you about a couple of awesome things that happened at the Freiburg fair that I forgot to mention to y'all, and I also want to talk to you guys about about signs and looking for signs and Finding signs, and sometimes those things are meant for you and they're given to you just when you need them most. And last week we had a big one that's now hanging on my wall. And today I had another message, a surprising message sent to me from someone that hasn't spoken to me in quite some time, for good reason, and, yeah, some surprising conversation that was a sign for for my old man, and I'm gonna update you on all those things next week. But, man, I'm sorry guys, I hate to leave you like this, but I'm nervously rambling because I know what I got to do. I got to get ready and roll today's the day and and by the time you guys hear this episode, my dad should have gone through his testing. We would have seen the results and, hopefully, gone through surgery and things are great. So by the time you're hearing this, that's what I'm praying for, that's what I'm hoping for, and Just one more time I gotta say thank you. Thank you for being in my corner, thank you for all your support, thank you for your, for your prayers and support for me and my family. I appreciate you. I can't thank you enough, and Today I'm gonna change my ending just just a little bit and say Thank you for supporting my dad's American dream. I love y'all, appreciate you. I look forward to next week. Thank you for always being you. I love you. That's it and that's all. Biggie smiles Wait, wait, wait, wait, stop, stop. If you found value in today's show, stop, stop, scotty, don't? Scotty? Do stop the music, don't stop, don't stop, don't stop the beat. Okay, bring it back down now. Okay, people, here's the deal. I couldn't go out like that. Okay, I couldn't go out like that and I got some news. So I just want to come back and give you the news. So we transported my dad to Main Med to Portland Hospital. When I arrived at Biddeford he was getting on the elevator to get loaded up in the ambulance. My mom said that some of his favorite nurses and a lot of the ladies from the fourth floor all lined up and gathered up to say goodbye to him. So just goes to show how awesome the care is there and I'm really thankful and appreciative of all those ladies that took great care of my dad and it's pretty touching that they, you know, were happy for him and excited to see him go beside, to see him go at the same time, and I wish I was able to see that but I wasn't. But more importantly, my dad has been transported to Portland and I just got home from the hospital. I've been there the rest of the day and he settled in and and and go into sleep and I had a little bit more time here where I can drop an update on the podcast and not leave you guys with so much of a cliffhanger here. So we were being told in Biddeford that as soon as he arrived in Portland it'd be testing and then right into surgery. That's not the case. It's been a lot of hurry up and wait, so I know a lot of you guys out there, a lot of you prayer warriors are out there getting ready to, you know, try to help pull us through this. And I just wanted to give you the heads up that I don't believe there's gonna be any surgery today, on this winning Wednesday, that you're listening to the episode, speaking with the doctors and stuff. So far there's still a little concern about his kidneys, about his blood pressure level, about his plate lip count. So while I was there they did a blood transfusion for him, they pulled all the staples out of his stomach surgery, his incision that's there. So they're doing a lot of different things to him Maybe a CAT scan tomorrow and a few different things. But they're really trying to line everything up just to kind of get him as prepared as possible for the tests and the surgery. So right now it's still a lot of hurry up and wait. But my dad feels encouraged by the fact he was actually moved right, like he feels like he's taking a step in the right direction, like something's actually happening and he's met with so many doctors today. So that's where we're at y'all. I got all worked up thinking today's a day for surgery. I put my hand on the Cabela's catalog and eye to the sky, truthful confessional from this guy. I really hope that we don't have to do any procedures on Friday or Saturday when I have these commitments, because I don't feel like I can back out on these things. You know, I'm not gonna back out on somebody's wedding, but I'm gonna be so lost, just searching and wondering and praying for my dad, not knowing what's what's happening. So I'm hopeful that you know, maybe Thursday something happens. If not, it's Sunday, monday, something that we can just get through. I want to be there at the hospital, I want to be by his side, as close to his side as possible through all this. So, yeah, man, just giving you guys another truthful confessional, letting you know what's going on. So again, thank you everybody for all your love and support. I appreciate you. I can't thank you enough. So far it's a lot more hurry up and wait, but my dad seems encouraged. He's getting stronger day by day. So I'm hopeful and praying and on that note, I am still gonna leave you a little cliffhanger because I got some fun things to point out from the fair, some signs that have been happening out of nowhere. I'm gonna save that, I'm gonna share that next week. So until then, thank you for supporting my dad's American Dream. Now go wash your fucking hands. You have felt these nabbage. That's it and that's all. Biggie Smiles. 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