Just a little background on us. lol

Now, I think, that I have a moment of relative solitude. lol. Jodi is in bed and her kids are at there fathers this weekend. My 2 daughters live on the west coast and my son is visiting his mother.
I think that it wouldn't be to much to give you a little bit of a background on us and what has been happening over the last little bit.
I am not looking for sympathy by telling you any of this. I just want you to know that, I don't think, life is supposed to be a perfect "bowl of cherries". The things most cherished in life are not achieved with out effort and purpose.
Here goes:

I first met Jodi officially in July 05. She had actually been stalking me since about May, so I guess it was inevitable that we would meet. I guess she actually liked me prior to meeting me and had been dropping all kinds of hints and saying things to try and make me jealous and such. Lol. Me being a man, caught nothing at all. Go figure.
I will say that our first meeting was a little tense at the beginning. Jodi had a couple girlfriends over and was a little choked at one of them, because this girlfriend did herself up and, now that I know her, was probably trying to weasel in. Jodi hung back in the background. I was there to see her and do have some manners. lol. It obviously paid off, because now, here we are. hehehe.
If you are good at judging pictures and dates, you will probably figure out about what time Connor came into being. hehehehe.
I am not saying that to say at all that we got together for him and not us. That wouldn't be true. We are both out of divorces and have kids. We wouldn't use another one as an excuse.
Anyways...on with the story. I can't say, or wouldn't admit to "Love at first sight", however, we meshed right away and started dating as much as we could. I started coming to her place every weekend(at the time, Zach and Jenny were living with their mother). Jodi was going to college in the hopes of attaining a psychology degree. She was doing this pregnant and with 3 other crazy kids at home. I was totally supporting her in this endeavour. It was tough work and unfortunately she had to give it up. She ended up getting ill for most of the pregnancy and couldn't do the commute to school or stay in class so she had to quit.
You will have to forgive me but I am terrible with story dates and will leave most of them out, or just get them wrong. lol.
Connor was born in March of 06. I think, although Jodi would never admit it, the pregnancy was extremely hard on her. Not only did she have a new boyfriend, 3 kids of her own and had to drop out of school, but she was living with her mother and undergoing major life changes and rediscovering who she was. By the way...she has turned out to be an all around AWESOME lady, wife and mother.
Anyways, on with the show. We were going great and definitely developing intense feelings for each other, although we would never admit the "L" word. lol. I moved in in May after Connor was born.
That is when the fun started. hehehehehe. Jodi's kids were willing to give me a chance, I think. However, they were not pleased(from the start) that mom was seeing someone other than their father. James and I have the biggest challenge together. He really wants to support his dad, which I totally support for all of the kids. The conflict there is that he likes me a lot, but doesn't want to "commit" to a deeper relationship with me yet. He is an awesome kid and is turning into a strange teen. lol. He is at the age where he thinks that all the girls think he is James Bond or something. lol. I am looking forward to him growing up and seeing what he will turn into. James and Zach are now getting along really good too. Zach has been living with us for 2 years now. Jennifer Leigh(Jodi's) is coming around too and starting to let me in to her emotional life as well. She definitley doesn't like being told what to do....especially by me...but she is 11 going on 16 and thinks that the world should revolve around her and her alone. lol. Pretty typical, I think.
Then there is Ricky. We are developing a pretty cool attitude. Both him and Jenni call me dad unless they are mad at me or not happy with me. lol.
Anyways, onto Ricky. He is Jodi's "special" child. I don't say that to try and single him out from the others, but he is. He has always been slight and frail looking, except as a baby. When he was a baby, he didn't move around a lot, never very active and always quiet.

By the way...When you read this Jodi, if I miss something or said it wrong, please correct it.

Anyways, when he was 3 Jodi and her ex started to take him to doctors and such and try to figure out what was up and if anything was wrong at that time. The long and the short of it is that, at that time, they didn't find out a lot. I think they found some "structural" concerns with him, but nothing major at the time.
Since I have known him, he has always been as active as he can. He gets tired easy and tries to get out of work with it. He has never been a big eater and at times, my bird would eat more than him. We always used to argue with him aobut needing to eat and so on and so on. lol. I will get to the point of that in a minute. lol. At the time, we did nag, because we never understood what was wrong.
Anyways, try to shorten this a bit. lol. We took him back to a clinic in Edmonton where he had gone as a toddler and had them look at him again. We had no clue what was wrong, Jodi had her suspisions and so on. The doctors looked again and figured it was all structural and away we went. They set up an appointment with a Pediatrician for us and we went to see her. Both of Rickys legs turn slightly to the right below the knee. She sent us to rheumotology at the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary. To a Dr. Lakonia. He is about 200 years old and has hampsters growing out of his ears. He is an "old school" british doctor. Ricky was not having a good day at the time. His stomach was distended a bit, he was lethargic, pale and looked sick. The Doctor immediately picked up on it and said that he wasn't thriving. I am very thankful that Ricky had a bad day and we saw this Dr.
After the first time, when Ricky was 3, there was nothing conclusive so Jodi just had to go on and muddle through. She always new something was wrong, just not what.
Dr. Lakonia got the ball in play immediately and we have been back and forth for different test...none of whitch have to do with his "structural" or neurological challenges. We went to GI to try and see why he wasn't eating and see if they could figure it out. He knew that Ricky didn't need his department so he was setting up orthepedics and got us into Endocrine(something to do with bones and such). We were looking at about 6 months to a year to get in to some of the departments. We have been to all but Neurology in the last 6 months. lol. We see neurology and back to GI next month.
Basically, by total fluke, we have found out that Ricky is definitely a very "special" boy. None of what we have found out has been related to his fragility and structural stuff. For the most part.
We have found out that his small and large intestines are absolutely messed up. His small intestines are in the position of a surgery that is performed to correct a more serious issue that people have. His Large intestines are "draped" together on his left(?) and his appendix is located just above his groin. This isn't as serious as what else we found out though.
With Endocrine, they decided after the initial exam to do a bone density scan. These are very routine and normal. Anyways, the results of that showed that Ricky has osteoporosis.
An average child will have a score of 0 or 1. Ricky is a -4. The doctor phoned Jodi with the results, usually they would book an appointment to go over the results. We have had to mostly shut him down from most physical activities. They don't want him riding a bike, playing sports, climbing of playground apparatus and so on and so on. Pretty much any activity that an average boy wants to do, he can't. It has been toughest on Jodi and Ricky is pretty stressed by it too. The biggest concern is actually not a full break of the bone. "Micro fractures" can develop more and can cause a lot of pain. More like splintering than breaking. That doesn't mean that it is unlikely for a full break at all. That can happen easier with him than not.
Needless to say Jodi is borderline unglued and will never admit it. Ricky is very concerned as well. Yes, I am too. I have had my hidden moments of fear, not knowing the future, fear of losing him and so on. I will deny that if questioned. lol. Jodi has experienced all of these and on top of that, being a mother and not being able to fix her child. It has been a challenge. Jodi had no real answers for 5 years and now all of this has been dumped on her in the last 4 months or so. It has been like a heroin trip

I am saying all of this so that you know where we are coming from and what we are up against here. Yes, there is more. lol. One thing that I want to say upfront and I know that Jodi will agree with this is that, yes, this is an immense stress on our marriage. It is also a test of sorts. Our marriage is stronger than I can say. I know that we are going through an immensely tough time right now, but I have absolutely no fear that we will come out in the end, regardless of the end results, stronger and still married to one another. I truly believe that we are soulmates and mean t to be.

Anyway, we still have to finish finding out what is totally wrong with Ricky and go from there. On top of that, we have the other kids as well. They are all feeling scared about Ricky and are still at the age that they can't deal with all of the emotions involved and are acting out a little more than normal. They have had to deal with what we have had to as well. We are all adjusting to it. The kids are turning the corner and starting to treat Ricky better and so on.
Next.....there has been the finacial side of things. lol. We both had debt coming in of some sort or another. All was good and we had no worries at all. Then, somehow, the bottom dropped out. lol. We have no clue when or how or what actually happened, but it has been a tough ride. We did have to get a loan to make sure that our wedding went off, again, we weren't worried at all. All was good. Jodi was in a Florist program and had a job when she got out. No problem. Then, she had to quit her job. She has had some health/dental issues that have come up and pretty much stopped her cold for a while. lol. There have been childcare issues, bill issues, loan issues. General financial crap issues, running kids around issues. Recently we have had vehicle problems with both of our cars. Mine were fairly minor. Our mini van was recently condemned. That gave us the stress of making doctor appointments. I have said from the start that I will be there whenever. The initial plan was to go to "major" appointments and then Jodi would go to the minor treatment ones and so on. Now we had to look at me going to all of them. I live an hour away from where I work, so I would have to book the whole day off and lose my wage. We have been on the fastrack for that so I have missed a lot of time. Then I got a bad bug and was in bed for about a week.
That is the long and short of it. I think we are being given all the challenges that could happen over the total life of an average marriage in a short time to make sure that we have what it takes. lol. I KNOW that we do and so does Jodi. We will get through it all, but it is #&%^$@ tough to say the least.
Anyways. That is what we have on our plate for the most part. On top of that, I want to join the RCMP and Jodi is totally supportive of that.
My wanting to join the RCMP was a snap decision too. lol. Thought about it about 3 weeks ago, talked it over with Jodi. Everyone in the family is supportive and excited, so here i am.

The way a lot of things are working out in the past 3 weeks, both Jodi and I think that this is the road we should be on.
Yesterday, someone gave us a mini van. Didn't cost us a thing, just a thank you. It is a year newer than ours with about half of the mileage. Our finances have been working out a bit, although we have had to make a SERIOUSLY MAJOR decision in regard to that. That is still working through, but is looking positive and slowly better.

Everything has seemed to point us on the road to near uncertainty and the RCMP. We are totally looking forward to it and scared to death at the same time.
My wife says that she likes adventure and so on. I don't know how ready I am yet, but I guess I will find out soon enough. I think that I can do it and become a regular member of the RCMP.
That is what is exciting me.

I don't want sympathy from anyone. That is not my intention in writing this. This is my public diary and I think it is fair to tell you where I come from and who I am and what I am facing. More importantly...what my family and I are facing and where we are going and what we are going through to get there.

Talk to you later