So, by the time Brian was due, I already had three children under the age of 5, which on their own, should have kept me busy…..but on top of having three children under the age of 5, I was also building a Network Marketing business, and teaching swimming lessons to infants and children in my back yard. I was able to pay for the whole pool by teaching swimming lessons, which was how I sold the idea to my husband!
The name, “Petrie”, comes from the nickname we all gave him from the movie, “The Land Before Time”. He was so tiny and cute, just reminded of us that character. He played that at his wedding for our Mother/Son dance, and had me completely broken up crying.
It was also because I was teaching swimming lessons to all of these children, that I probably caught Salmonella, which resulted in Brian being born three weeks early! I was not extremely worried about him being born early, because my children tended to be rather large at birth, but he ended up having what they call, ” Wimpy White Boy Syndrome”. I have found out that baby boys who are in a healthy gestational womb, under no physical stresses, tend to develop slower. So, shortly after his birth, he began having difficulties breathing, because his lungs were not yet producing enough surfactant. He ended up having one lung collapse, and had to be rushed to Shand’s NICU. He spent a week there on Oxygen, and support, and then a second week at Alachua General to get a little stronger. I spent most of every day with him at each place. He was not strong enough to nurse yet, so I pumped , and fed him breast milk through a tube. His siblings were brought over each day to visit with him. Even though he was a 37 week preemie – (although not by today’s newest guidelines), he weighed 7lbs 6oz. He looked tiny to me, but not compared to most preemies.
Once Brian was home, my main job was protecting him from siblings who thought he was their newest toy! I remember sitting in the living room, right after we had gotten home, and looking in the doorway to see three year old Megan carrying him across our brick floors! He was also my, ” most likely to put anything he found on the floor child”. I don’t know how many times I called 911 panicking over something he had gotten caught in his throat. A tiny piece of plastic across his airway was the time that scared me the most! He was always busy, and into everything.
We were doing a lot of traveling at that time, and we used to draw straws over who would have to sit next to Brian:) We knew that whoever it was, would get no sleep, even if it was an 18 hour flight to Australia! He just never slept on a flight, and never stopped talking. Things we would give the other kids to help them sleep on a long flight, had the opposite affect on Brian! I remember a trip to England, and Ireland, with all the kids, and my parents, when he really bonded with my Mom:) On this trip, we had 18 pieces of luggage everywhere we went, because there were 9 of us! At one dinner in a Pub in Ireland, my Mom was taking to someone, and turned around to see that Brian had stuck toothpicks all up and down the entire length of her sweater. Then not long later, we heard her yelp, and turned around to see that Brian had put a piece of candle wax on her arm to see what she would do. Of course that was also before we found out that both boys were spending so much time in my Dad’s room, because there was a channel with “adult” content movies running 24 hours a day with no restrictions.
As Brian grew up, he tended to be bossed around somewhat by his brother Kyle, who was eighteen months older. While Kyle would fight with brawn, Brian would respond back with brains, which usually resulted in one of them ending up in the Emergency room. I remember one time when Kyle did something to make Brian mad, and Brian responded by changing the controls on Kyle’s dirt bike, so that the next time Kyle turned it on, the throttle immediately went into full acceleration throwing him off!
Brian also was a big MacGyver fan, and used to watch it constantly, learning all kinds of tricks. One time he got mad at his Dad for not doing something he promised, and when he came home later and opened his closet door, Brian had rigged it so that every baseball cap he had in the closet came flying out at him:)
As Brian grew up, he and I shared a love of all animals. I remember him helping me rescue tadpoles out of our pool one year, after a hurricane. Another love we shared was one of marine animals. One of my favorite trips was to chaperone a field trip he took to a Marine Biology Laboratory in the Florida Keys. We had so much fun that year going out on the boats every day and diving, and studying the sea creatures.
Brian was always very sure of himself, and was usually always right – but there was this one summer in the Keys:) The kids were taking turns captaining on my boat, and usually arguing about who was the better driver/navigator. Well, Brian planned a spear fishing/ diving trip the next morning. It was me, and about 10 kids – mine, and Katie, and her brothers. I get up early – pack everyone a lunch, and we head out on the boat – a beautiful day! We get out to the spot Brian picked out with no problems. Everyone, but Sydney and I, are in the water, when all of the sudden a boat comes flying up out of nowhere. I am gesturing to them that they are too close, and then realize that it is the Coast Guard. They board the boat, and ask me to get my divers out of the water. Kyle pops up first with a tiny fish on his spear gun. Next the rest start popping up. After we get everyone on the boat, he asks them a few questions, which for some reason no one can answer quite right. Like how old are you, where do you live? After we all show him our licenses, he asks Brian if he knows where we are. Brian says something smart like – The Keys? Well, no – we were actually dead center in the middle of a Fish Sanctuary! The guy goes to our navigation system, and if Brian had zoomed out a little more, he would have noticed the boundary circle that surrounded us. Too make a long story short, I think he felt sorry for us, because of our lack of intelligence, and the fact that it was a whole boat full of kids, and let us off with a warning.
There was also one time Brian wanted to take me to a shark dive spot he had found. I let him guide us out there, again, just me and the kids. Anyway, we pull up to the spot he had marked, and just he and I jump in to the water. The minute our feet hit the bottom, I turn around and a nurse shark is swimming right at me! I still feel guilty to this day over the fact that I turned around, grabbed Brian, and stuck him in front of me:) The kids have never let me live that down as they were all above of watching from the boat:)
Brian was very goal oriented, and focused on his goals he wanted to accomplish. When he was approaching the beginning of his college career, I decided to throw out an incentive to whichever of my kids graduated first. Brian managed to finish his degree in nursing quickly and won that monetary incentive. He loved nursing from the start, and quickly settled in on a career in Cardiac Intensive care. He worked at Shands in CICU while completing his Bachelor’s online through UCF. He then traveled around the West Coast before settling down this last year in California. I had a great time visiting him, because he would take me fly fishing, and hiking in the mountains.
He married his long time high school surfing buddy, friend, and fellow CICU nurse, Shelby, this past September. I love Shelby as if she is my own daughter, she is an awesome person, and a wonderful addition to my family, and we are both addicted to watching, ” The Walking Dead”! They have now both been accepted into Nurse Anesthetist school, and actually just pulled into my driveway, with a moving van towing their car behind it. They will know in the next couple weeks exactly where they will be going to school, but it will be in Florida. Brian and Shelby were both at my house last year, when his Dad, who was visiting, had a Myocardial Infarction, and they knew exactly what to do. I just recently learned in class what a STEMI was, but all of my kids kn nursing knew as soon as the Paramedics pulled a strip!
As I feel about my other kids in the nursing profession, if I ever end up on a cardiac floor – it is Brian or Shelby – I’d want taking care of me!