Captain Tin Man's Journey to See the Wizard

9 weeks ago today we invested in the pricey rebuild kit for my faulty heart valve. So far it's proving worthy of the extra sacrifice and trip to BelieveLand. I've been told on numerous occasions I really suck at updating this blog. This is very true and I've caved to the guilt, so here goes. It's so appreciated some have actually taken the time to follow along. As we've mentioned before, the outpouring of support has been humbling and is so very appreciated. As anticipated, recovery has been full of ups and downs. Overall, I feel so fortunate and couldn't expect to be in a better place than I am now. I've been reminded on numerous occasions to be patient with recovery, and my favorite, "listen to your body". I'm not exactly overflowing with patience and sometimes feel that if we always listened to our bodies we'd all be overweight addicted to prescription pain meds and wearing holes in our couch, or Rascal Scooter seat (think WALL-...

This morning I pulled my gear off the truck and packed it away in my locker for the last time in a bit. It was kind of surreal. There were tons of well wishes, handshakes, and hugs. I got hugs from dudes I never envisioned I'd be hugging in a whole career.  The shift itself was standard. We started with a gnarly motorcycle crash that dropped 30 minutes before the shift was even supposed to start. I had just started checking out my equipment and setting up my gear on the truck, but I was there so I was going. We finished the 24 hour shift with the dreaded 06:30 AM call just before shift change. This one was the furthest thing from a true emergency. There was a whole lot of uneventful run of the mill in between.  We even got a few hours of sleep on a Saturday night. I think the candle we've been lighting to fend off the evil spirits that create night calls is truly legit and doing it's job well.  Thanks Firefighter Brian White for your dedication to the crew brin...