“2004” was such an eventfull year. PCR negative for the first time in four years. Lori graduated with her Masters Degree. 4.0 of course. We had a great time on our Disney Cruise. Nick was knocking it out of the park finally in baseball and after four years of hard work, was gearing up for his Black Belt test in “Tong Soo Do” Karate. Very proud pop! Joe was flying on the ice, Bear was getting huge and I finished up another year at the store. Ho Ho Ho! Life was great. The back and forth to New York was a regular occurrence as Nonno was still battling into the new year. Now, it was time to get rolling again on our second “Team Belaggio” event.
Planning a charity event like mine had to be a labor of love. There was so much work involved in raising sponsors, getting donations of gifts and prizes and merchandise. Calls upon calls everyday for months right up until that day. This year was going to be bigger and better. I had experience now.
“2005” was very eventful too. As I planned and worked towards my big event, work was picking up…a lot! A great Valentines Day and Mothers Day, the year was looking good. Hockey was taking up a huge amount of time. Nick was playing his first year on the Middle School team and trying so hard. He was so upset that he hadn’t scored a goal all season. He was only in fifth grade. It will come. We got to go to Lake Placid with Joe’s team and I got to coach in the 1980 Olympic arena where the US won the Gold medal. Very exciting! It was a great time. When we got home, Nick passed his Black Belt test and proudly became an official “Bad Ass”. Scary. Unfortunately, his skills had to be tested soon after….they were pretty good. Took me a while to get Joe’s nose to stop bleeding. Unbelievable. Can they ever stop fighting?!!! This toughness would become most evident a few weeks later.
Nick was running a very high fever. 105 degrees and had terrible pain in his stomach. Lori took him to the doctor and the diagnosis by the PA was a viral infection. He was sent home with instructions to take Ibuprofen and drink liquids. I got home from work a few hours later and the poor kid was curled up on the sofa writhing in pain, high fever and very pale. I knew otherwise. After a fast drive to the ER, Nick was admitted with a burst Appendix! Talk about a scary situation! Luckily, he was given pain meds to help him. I couldn’t believe that he went almost two days barely complaining and just taking the pain. The Surgeon would wait twenty-four hours to operate on Nick so that the antibiotics they were administering to him would reduce the infection prior to taking the infected Appendix out. When the time came to operate, it was so hard to watch him being wheeled away into the operating room. Who gets Appendicitis at eleven years old! The operation was a success and all was good until the Principal at Nick’s Elementary School called his name at his graduation later that night! Where’s Nick! Poor kid didn’t get to go on stage to receive his Presidential Education Award, his Principal Award, his Circle of Excellence Award and his Math Excellence Award. Everybody missed him because they didn’t know what happened yet. Such a great kid.
My “LABOR” of love was now coming to fruition. It felt so great to give back to the cause. The event went off without too many issues. Northampton Valley CC was very hospitable as usual and my team was spectacular! The golf course was packed, as well as the dinner. We had a speaker from the LLS come to our banquet dinner and deliver a great speech as well as another compatriot battling Leukemia. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. In the end, we raised about 20k to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Another successful day. This time I was sure to hydrate and eat. No kidney stones this year…thank God.
Next up: Finishing Out The Year