I love my niece.

Makenzie Jo Sedlacek is going to have surgery again tomorrow.

A summary, as sent from my brother via e-mail:

"Last fall, Doctors placed a stent in Makenzie's Left Pulmonary Artery in an effort to increase the flow of "blue" blood to her left lung to be oxygenated. While it was a successful procedure in terms of widening her left pulmonary artery, her little body created layers of material inside the stent, effectively closing up the opening. This fall, Doctors conducted a heart catheterization to try and open it up again, but had difficulty accessing the stent. While they were able to open a portion of it, she still is not getting enough blood to her left lung, which results in too much pressure in her little heart.

For those of you who get to see Makenzie on a regular basis, you know that she does not show any signs of duress, and appears to be a happy and healthy 5 year old. We have debated whether to hold off on another procedure until it became more urgent. However, the sooner we can get better blood flow to the left lung, the better her chances are that the vein structure within the lung will grow.

Next Friday, November 16, we will once again take Makenzie to Fairview University hospital, where she will undergo an open chest (not open heart) procedure to open up the stent."

She should be home in 3-4 days.

I've known for a couple of weeks now that this was going to happen tommorow.

At first, it was completely overwhelming...my brother told me the date over the phone at work. the rest of the day, I had to fight off sudden bursts of emotion, when thoughts of the worst-case scenario would pop into my head.

So I put it out of mind. I refused to think about it, and therefore refused to deal with it.

Until tonight. I can no longer put off thinking about it...Kenzie is going in for surgery TOMORROW morning at 8. They are going to have to open up her chest to get at her heart.

If it is successful, it could mean that she will not have to have any further surgery for YEARS.

I love Makenzie more than anything, and it is so unfair for a little girl so full of energy and life to have to deal with the health issues that she has had to.

To again quote my brother, "At this time, we're looking to friends and family for a couple things.

First is prayer. We pray that the Doctors will be able to open up her left pulmonary artery. We pray that her left lung will take the blood, and get it oxygen, so that her right lung and heart will not have to work so hard. We pray that she will once again recover quickly. We pray that her doctors, nurses and everyone else who watches over her will be up to the task. We pray that this procedure will allow her to grow and enjoy life and not need to come back for further work for YEARS."

The second thing was helping watch over my nephew Tyler so that Jake and Heidi can be with Makenzie/rest.

I can't really describe my feelings of anxiety and helplessness...but all I can really do is just be there, for her, and for my brother and our family.

I love my niece.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I thoroughly enjoy dressing like a zombie.

Maybe it's a call back to being in shows in high school, and caking make-up on and doing something silly.

Maybe it's just because I look so damn good.

Whatever the reason, I LOVE dressing up as ZombieTom.

This Halloween, I didn't intend to take the day after off of work. Even though Halloween was a Wednesday night.

Then Mindy B suggested that we should, and that was that.

I took the day off work, my buddy Jim called me and said he was flying in from San Diego that day, and I thought we were pretty well set.

Then, the night before Halloween came, and Mindy B bailed. If Jim wasn't flying in, I would have called my boss and told him that I was coming in to work on Thursday.

It's probably the best thing Jim has ever done.

We started at Chipotle, where we got free burritos for dressing up like...burritos.

I made myself a sweet burrito hand.

During the course of the meal, I was antagonizing our friend Melissa a bit, as any of my female friends will say I often do. Melissa did the only logical thing, and stabbed me in the hand with a pen. Hard. Hard enough to draw blood. Hard enought that I can look down at my hand right now, two weeks after, and see the mark.

After Chipotle, we went home to get ready.

Dena and Darcy met Kris, Jim and I at our apartment, as Kris and I were still getting ready. When ZombieTom and the guy going as "Screwed, Blued and Tattoo'd" emerged with Shaun of the Dead, we headed to the bus stop.

It was excellent planning. Bus downtown + cab back= No one has to sobercab.

The Shout was PACKED. One of our friends, claiming it was too cold for her Tinkerbell costume, came as either a Twins Fan or Johan Santana, I never did find out which. Another friend came as a baller (he had a number of balls in his hands and glued to his shirt), and another as the lead singer from the group that did "Come on Eileen". Or so he claimed, he looked like a frenchman.

It was a fun night.

As I said, it was packed. And I kept getting surrounded by chairs. Every time I tried to move there was a God damned chair in my way.

It took 45 minutes to an hour to get service, so a small group of us (4-5) were ordering 12 beers at a time. Once, 2 of us ordered the round at the same time. Making the best of a bad situation, we drank them all.

At some point, my hand-stabbing friend clawed the shit out of my neck. She left three really long scratch marks. I was pissed. I kept telling people that she took a huge chunk out of my neck (fortunately, doctors were able to re-attach it after I passed out). She also made out with Jim.

By the end of the night, my neck hurt (from the scratches) and I had a WICKED headache. Kris and I decided it was time to call a cab. We were waiting outside the bar in the plaza for the building, and I was crouching, when a friend came up and slapped me in the face, hard.

Now, most of my loyal readers know that I have a pretty....fiery temper. I popped up, determined to hit something. I started towards my buddy, realized what I was about to do, and turned and punched an elevator.

That got us kicked out of the plaza.

Our cab either didn't come, or someone else flagged it down, and we had to wait forEVER to get another one. If not for Jim, we probably would have slept outside BlockE.

When we finally got in the cab, Kris was in the middle, with Erinn on his lap, and Jim and I were on either side.

When it became clear that Erinn had to throw up, we started a mad scramble for the window controlls, and told the driver to pull over. Erinn scooted over onto my lap, and promptly threw up...out the window.

Kris gave the cabbie a decent tip, and I febreezed the outside of his door.

Then we all passed out.

And I woke up with pink hair shit all over my spongebob pillow.

I love Halloween.