Meet the Crew: Luke

I know that I have already half-introduced myself in the last post, but this is your chance to really see who I am. My family and I currently live in Central Illinois in America. We have been living here for about a year since my wife had a health scare, and then my son was on the way! Anyway, let's break this down into sections.

The beginning

Growing up, I was moved around a lot because of my dad's work. I have lived in more than one country, and I have traveled to many more. Because of this travel, we adopted my two little sisters. It is crazy how life works because, without these experiences, I would probably have never met my wife. This is because my youngest sister is deaf, and this is actually how I got my wife's attention online. We both had a common interest in American Sign Language!

After being trucked around Asia with my family, we did come back to America and ended up living close to all of my family in central Illinois. Being less than thirteen hours away from everyone was very refreshing. I can also say that some of my best memories happened when we lived out of suitcases in my grandma's basement for the summers and winters.

I had always considered my childhood to be a very unique experience. I felt that most people lived and grew up in one, maybe two places. This, however, does not apply to my wife. She, too, was trucked around everywhere as a child because her dad is a pastor. Anytime you start thinking that you are unique, the world will always show you how wrong you are. If you are paying attention, that is!

The Present

We are still living in central Illinois in a little apartment that is basically underground. There are some windows, though, so it is not too dark. The apartment has a lot of built-in shelves due to the cinderblocks right outside of the wall to keep the moisture out (I assume that is what they do). We are currently a single-income household, and this will probably stay true for a very long time because Mavrick will need more and more help as he gets older. we also really can't have Moriah not on Medicaid. We are still paying off her medical bills from just a normal year of living when she worked full time and had insurance, and that was almost two years ago at this point!

It is very stressful raising a child with OI as you never know when they are going to break. You don't know if they will decide it's time to use their legs, and one leg just gives. I really want Mavrick to be a strong, independent little munchkin, but he has a lot of very hard trials to overcome before it happens. Luckily, the Zolas infusions are working, and Mavrick has not broken in months. We have even started picking him up from under his arms! I know that sounds weird to be excited about, but it is a major win for a baby with OI. His feet are still very bowed, so when he starts to try and walk, that will be a problem... I am not looking forward to that...

We were told that the doctor would fix the bowing when he either started to pull up on things or chronically broke his legs. I never thought I would hear a doctor say that they will fix a baby's legs only after they start chronicly breaking! I really hope that Maverick just starts pulling up without breaks and they can do the surgery. That is just wishful thinking, though; I am almost certain it will not be that easy.

When I am not at work, and I am not worrying about my family, I love to go on walks with both Maverick and the dog. Just last weekend, the three of us went hiking, and that was a fun experience. Mavrick had never been in the woods before, and he loved it! I don't think I had ever seen his eyes open that wide. I am super glad that my son loves the outdoors. The outdoors is good for stress and anxiety. I know I feel much better when I have been outside for the day. I am also selfishly hoping Mavrick forces me into the habit of getting out more. I currently have a really bad habit of just not leaving the house until my mental health starts going down the drain, and I have to change something, or I might melt. It is not something I do on purpose, but it just happens. A lot of the things I love to do are done on the computer, and I just get way too fixated on those things, Before I know it, I am super anxious and don't know why. I will say, though, since Mavrick has come around, I have not had nearly enough time to get that invested in anything other than Mavrick.

The Future

I am hoping that in the future, I will still have my beautiful wife, and I will have a strong, successful son. I could still see myself working at my current job for a long time. I will go ahead and assume that I would still be working there and living in central Illinois. We will definitely own a house at some point. We might need to change some of our spending habits now to make that happen, but it will happen because I promise you that I will not let Mavrick grow up in a two-bedroom apartment his whole childhood. I have higher aspirations for my family than that. I have high hopes for the future, even though I am sure there is a less-than-smooth road ahead of us. I firmly believe that the things bringing us the most joy and the value also require the most amount of work. I will also share two aspirations with you all that I hope to achieve at some point in life. One of them is to learn another language fluently. Right now, I know some American Sign Language, Chinese, and Russian, but I am farthest along with my American sign language skills. The second goal is to create and publish my own video game. Whether that game ends up being successful or not, I am not too worried about it, but I want the game to be hand-crafted and something that I can be proud of. I don't know if I will ever achieve either of these as I like to do everything the hard way, and that doesn't usually pan out for me. especially when the thing I want to do is already hard!

I hope you all enjoyed my introduction! It was fun to write and even more fun to share! I hope you guys had a great week and continue on to have an even better weekend!

See you all next week for my post about preparing for Moriah's leg surgery!

BYE!