Rick Sanchez thinks he has found the answer to the question of the season. He is not worried whether or not you agree.
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I have been asked that question by my kids…
In December of 2005 my wife was driving to work at 7:30am and had, what we thought, was a heart attack. Huge chest pains…She called me frantic, and the ambulance picked her up on the side of the road. I had to meet her at the hospital. After a few days, it was determined that she had not had a heart attack, but her spleen had burst for no reason…She had internal bleeding in the two pint range. Percentage wise, if your spleen bursts, and you have not been in a trauma like a car accident, are not a battered spouse and don’t play contact sports (and the toxins do not kill you) there is a 97% chance you have a serious cancer (leukemia lmphoma, etc.) .
So my wife was in the hospital after a splenectomy, then got a DVT, (Deep Vein Thrombosis) two weeks later that caused a bowel obstruction, and had two surgeries for all of December. I was working full time and we had 4 kids in school. I worked, took care of the kids, and then, after they were asleep, went to the hospital to be with my wife. I had in laws in town to help, but it was difficult to manage. There was no time for Christmas shopping (or anything else for that matter.) Barely any money either. We waited weeks for the other shoe to drop…”I am sorry to inform you, you have advanced leukemia and you have weeks to live,” as test after test were performed.
The shoe never dropped.
She was in the 3% whose spleen bursts for no reason at all. She would recover soon.
And then Christmas eve came, and I was in the hospital with my wife, talking about how happy we were to have her healthy, discussing how were we going to “make Christmas happen” for the kids…Should we just give them gift cards or cash? Maybe celebrate another day???
And then I got a call from my Sister in Law… A van had just pulled up in front of our house. Some friends of ours had banded together, made some calls, and got TONS of people to either donate, or pitch in.
There was a van chocked full of wrapped, age appropriate Christmas gifts for our family. More gifts than I had ever seen. More than I ever could have managed alone.
On Christmas morning the room was FILLED. Huge. Colorful. Vibrant. End to end, floor to ceiling.
The kids LOVED it!
I got the call and my wife was released later in the day and she came home on Christmas.
You ask me if there is a Santa…
My answer is YES.
He may not look like the picture kids color in books, but he is real.
Photo: Flickr/Chuck Coker