Birthday Adventures

My birthday was on the thirteenth, so I decided to take a few days off and drive to St. Louis to celebrate with my parents. I left late Monday afternoon, and Gigi and I made the five hour trek through Missouri.

Upon my arrival home late that evening (following a horrid drive that involved cars going 35 mph, three torrential downpours, a nervous-crying-wiggly puppy, and far too much construction), I was greeted with some rather unhappy birthday news – Daddy was in the hospital.

Apparently he’d had chest pains earlier that day, so he’d gone into the emergency room and they made him stay for a whole gauntlet of tests. We found out the next day (my actual birthday), that all of the test were returning negative (i.e. good) results – no heart attack, no blocked arteries, no irregularities…

While that was all well and good, it just meant that we still had no clue what had happened to him. So, they decided to keep him in the hospital for another evening of observation.

We had a mini-birthday at the hospital – I opened presents and Mom and I picked up the cake Daddy had ordered (from McArthur’s). My favorite present? A new case for my Mac – it looks like an old, hardback book, which, if you know me, fits my personality perfectly.

The cake was yummy, too. Won’t show you the traditional “first bite” picture that Mom always makes me take…no one wants to see that…

That night, since he was still stuck in the hospital, Mom and I decided to drive up to Columbia, MO where one of my best friends from high school (Kate) is working this summer. I hadn’t seen her in about a year, so it was a nice birthday treat. We had dinner at the Pasta Factory – grilled Ahi tuna and pesto linguini – and dessert at Sparky’s – White Russian & Chocolate Orange flavored homemade ice cream. Wanna see pictures? Silly me, of course you do! Here you go:

We spent the next day at the hospital with Daddy (while they ran even MORE tests), but we did take a break that evening and grab dinner with my roommate. And I got more birthday presents! She painted me two adorable canvases - they're perfect for our new place!

After dinner we stopped by Ted Drewe’s. If you’re ever in St. Louis, this place is a must. Just don’t go after a Card’s home game or an evening when the Muny has just let out…unless you wanna stand in a line that looks like...actually, nevermind. Go anyway. It's an experience.

After the second round of tests and a third night of observation (yes, they kept him another night), the doctor finally found the problem. Apparently, his heart’s electrical system isn’t operating properly. During the night, he had several incidents where his heart didn’t beat for a few seconds (one was 7 seconds long!) If that had happened while he was awake, he would have passed out cold. So, the doctor decided he needed a pacemaker…which meant another day in the hospital. The surgery went fine and we finally got to bring Dad home on Friday morning.

Since we had kinda missed my birthday, we decided to celebrate Friday evening with dinner at Citizen Kane’s – it was wonderful. They even put a candle in my dessert…which was odd…since it was flan…

Unfortunately, I had to leave super early the next morning to make it to Fayetteville for Business Plan Boot Camp, day 2, but more on that in a later post. The week, though it didn’t go as I’d planned, was nice. I got to see Mom and Dad, spend time with an old friend, and got presents! Now back to the real world – packing, moving, work, and school. Boot Camp update to follow – thanks for reading!