Cody Updates by Mom

This weekend was great in many ways however Saturday proved to be the hardest day of eating (or non-eating) that I have had.  I have been thinking about how to explain and I have decided to go in chronological order.  The great stuff and bad stuff was weaved together all day.

The weekend started out very well.  We had dinner with friends on Friday and I had Chicken Strips and fries.  I was able to eat one strip and about five fries.  Everything went well and I was very happy to get another food item on my list.  We then left and drove up to Duluth.  It was nice to drive and feel helpful and let Jim relax as we made our way north to see Cody.  We got in late and had some snacks and got some sleep.  In the morning I was able to have some sausage and egg from a breakfast sandwich as we were headed to the arena.  We saw Cody from the stands as he was waiting to start their first match.  Cody not only is one of the lead programmers he is also the gunner.  There is a two man drive team that runs the robot during all matches.  The driver has been the driver for the last couple years.  The gunner from last year graduated so Cody has been learning to take over this role.  After the first match they were in 34th place.  We then went to the pits and watched them do some practicing with the time limits and the team really started to come together.

Before their next match Jima and I decided to get lunch to hopefully have it before the lines got too long.  We were just going to get hot dogs which I had already proven I could eat however once we got to the head of the line I changed my mind and opted for a polish sausage.  Worst decision on the planet.  😦  This was about 11:30 am.

We made it to our seats and got down to eating.  I had a bite of Jim’s nachos and that went well.  I took my first bite of the polish and I realized that the skin was going to be an issue.  I quickly adjusted to just get the meat out of the skin and had a total of two bites of the polish.

At this point I am going to let you know that I have promised my family to be honest on how things are going so the following may not be something that you want to read due to the issues I had.  I will mark the section if you want to skip.

Grossness start:

I could tell right away that I had an issue with the polish.  I had it stuck and it really hurt.  Cody’s next match was starting and no little stuck food was going to stop me from this.  They did very well and after their second qualification match they had moved up 10 places into 24th.  Luckily the matches are only two and a half minutes and set up and scoring was maybe ten minutes in total.  At this point I knew I had a huge issue.  I tried to drink something and knew right away that the problem was bigger than I had thought as I could feel the water sitting on top of what was stuck.  Off to the bathroom for my first of many stops to try to dislodge the polish.  Throwing up in a public bathroom is not my idea of fun especially when you have about a million people that seem to have to come into the bathroom at the time you are there.  I was able to get some of it out however I still had an issue.  I left and tried to drink again.  No dice.  Back into a different bathroom.  We did this for the next hour or so.  We went and watched Cody’s last qualification match and they moved up into 14th place overall.  This put them in a good place to be picked for a finals team.  Found a bathroom again as even my saliva was not passing and I had to get it out after a short period of time had passed.

The tournament then went to final alliance selection.  This is where the top eight teams pick which robots they want on their finals team or alliance as they are called.  There are three robots that work as a team to compete.  With the way the selections went our team ended up moving up to have their own alliance as the eighth seeded alliance.  They were now in the quarterfinal elimination round.  This was great because it was such a great comeback for them from the morning however I was still in a lot of pain and not able to get even water down.  We spent the next hours doing the same, watching, running to a bathroom and pacing in the arena.  Quarterfinals was an average score of two matches to determine the top four teams to move on.  After the first round of quarterfinals the team was only a half a point out of fourth place to be able to move on to the semi finals.

In between the matches I was trying to be creative by trying to eat or drink in the bathroom to force a more complete process of throwing up.  This worked at times but I was still in the same boat.  I decided to stop adding anything more to the situation and stopped eating or drinking anything.  During or before the last elimination match for the quarterfinals a piece on the robot broke that caused them issues on gaining points.  This caused the team to miss the average score and not be able to move on to the semi finals.  Unfortunately, I was secretly relieved as I really didn’t know how much more I could take.  I was still so very proud of Cody and the drive team for their impressive improvement over the day.  We found Cody in the pits and I let him know that we were not going to stay for the rest of the finals and awards presentations.  I needed to go home.

Grossness stopped (for a bit)

We then went back to the car to go home.  Even though Jim wanted to drive, I insisted so that I could have control of the car stoppage if I had an issue.  I hadn’t tried anything new to eat or drink now for over an hour.  We had just under a three hour drive home.  A little over half the way home I felt a difference.  I think it was the really bumpy section of road in I35 that may have jogged something loose.  I didn’t feel the pain of the stuck food anymore which was a relief as we were now around 5ish and I had been in pain the whole time.  I had Jim get me some apple juice to drink and I was able to get that down.  Apple juice is helpful as it gives me some calories and nutrition.  We got home and the first thing was for me to see if I could eat.  I was feeling positive as I was able to have about a half bottle of apple juice on the drive back.

I picked something really soft to eat and tried.  Again it was stuck.  After a couple more trips to the bathroom, (extremely happy I was at my home bathroom in privacy and overall much cleaner than the arena bathrooms) I had had enough.  I lost it and completely broken down.  I had held it together all day and my strength of will was quite wore out.  I cried for a good 20 minutes.  During that time something happened and the food went down.  It seemed as if I had a bubble blocking my passageway and once it was gone the food was able to move.  I was finally able to eat some Jell-O and finish my ravioli.  I was exhausted.  We picked Cody up at school when they got back from the tournament and I went straight to bed.  This had been by far the longest day I have had, ever.

Sunday was a quiet day as I was very wore out and tired from the ordeal on Saturday.  I was able to eat all day with only some minor issues.  I believe that I may have aggravated the connection so it was sore and likely a bit swollen.

My ordeal over the weekend brought me down another pound and a half so I am at 22 pounds lost at this point.  We will be talking to Dr. Kendrick tomorrow about what is going on with this issue of getting stuff stuck.  More important, we are going to ask how we can avoid this going forward.

On a side note, today is my dad’s birthday.  He would have been 83 today.  He passed away in 1994 from cancer.  It is so odd that he has been gone for 21 years.  I miss his calmness and his stoic personality.  I know that he is up there keeping an eye on us and hopefully able to watch all of Cody’s accomplishments with robotics.  The picture was taken my senior year when my parents and I made a trip out west.  Wish you were here more than any words can express.  I am certain that you are enjoying some ice cream cake in heaven.

Caring Bridge Comments

Jim Langemo|Mar 3, 2015 8:51am
I can only imagine the pain and discomfort, Mel. Sending you love and strength.