No Playing just Praying

I know I said I would for the most part keep my kids out of the blog, but I need to write down what is on my mind so here goes.......

Tonight my youngest son was admitted to the hospital. He had been suffering from a 5 day migraine and our medical team decided it was best to admit him. He has suffered migraines for the last several years, missing up to 60 days of school each year. Because of the migraines he has had to stop playing sports because he missed to many practices and games. His teachers have refused to believe there is a problem, even though he ends up in the nurses office probably 25% of the days he is at school. They even went as far as to suggest he is faking and should be put in remedial classes. This for a kid who is in advance math and is mostly a straight A student. Hell he scored 99 percentile in his school testing.

But tonight we had to put him in the hospital. MommaMusky is a mess as can be expected. What is worse is that he will be in the hospital for at least 5-7 days and we won't be allowed to see him or talk to him with the exception of a phone call nightly from 8-8:30.

It's hard to verbalize my emotions. Like any parent I think my kids are the best and love them with all my heart, and my heart is breaking right now because he isn't home (how the hell will I handle college). It's interesting the things you notice the most when your kids are gone, but it's not so interesting when they can't be with you and you can't contact them.

I tried to play my guitar tonight to take my mind off of things, but can't concentrate and found myself stopping and staring into space. I'm dead tired but have no interest in going to sleep. I will be going to work tomorrow, because ....well...what else am I going to do.

As bad as it is for me, I can only guess how bad it is for the boy. He must be scared as hell. He is alone (in the sense he doesn't know anybody), in a place he hasn't been before and can not contact us or come home. I can't imagine what is going on in his mind. When MommaMusky took him to the hospital, we didn't expect this. We thought we would have a few days to prepare. Not the case.

I can't wait until tomorrow at 8PM when I can talk to him. I pray he isn't terrified, I hope I will be able to make it through the night myself. I miss you buddy and I love you!!!!

Like a kid in a candy store

Yep, that's it. This weekend is the Chicago Musky Show at Harper College. All the household names in Musky Fishing were there....Saric, Maina, Johnson, Heiting, Cain and a host of others. Fishing rods, reels, lures everywhere, regular painted lures, custom painted lures, people with bad teeth, ugly women.....What more could you want from a fishing show.

I had booth duty for the club from 1-8, which was great because I only had to work from 6 am till noon so I could make it. Spent most of the show shooting the shit with guys from the club. There is so much stuff to buy that I couldn't decide so I picked up a few new gliders and some Cranes and a few dozen replacement hooks for some of my 400+ lures.

Yes, that's right 400+. How many do I use on any given fishing trip? Probably less than 20 but you have to have a variety because you never know what will be working. And if I don't have what I need within my 400 lures I can generally rely on my fishing partner to bring another 100 or so.

I used to go to this show and spend at least $300, but have gotten to the point where it is really hard to find anything new that I really need. On top of the lures I have two Beckman nets (actually three but a buddy has one of them). Not sure why I have so many, you can't use more than one at a time and the only time you really replace a net is when you get a bigger one and my tourney partner already has the biggest one on the market so I don't need to buy one. In addition to the nets I have 4 custom made rods (made by Frank of Frank's custom rods), 3 St. Croix rods, 2 Shimano Compre rods, 2 Musky Mania trolling rods, 2 berkely rods, a browing silex rod and one that I can't remember the manufacturer. That's 15. Then I have a variety of Abu Garcia reels, probably 15 or so of those, a couple of Quatum Iron reels, couple of line counter reels (yes I have more reels than rods, and those don't include the reels that I use for parts, with two more reels on order). 3 GPS units, 3 fish finders, 2 trolling motors, 5 tackle boxes plus about 9 plano boxes and probably 15-20 lures that have not made it out of their boxes yet. Release tools, bolt cutters, replacement hooks, replacement split rings, jaw spreaders, 1/2 dozen boat towels, 30+ lake maps, 3 GPS chips of lake maps, back up trolling motor pedal.......

I think I have to much stuff, but I want more.

Only two months until the first fishing trip......down to Green River Lake in Kentucky.

Oh yeah, and I forgot I scheduled a week long trip during the show to Dryberry Lake in Canada during September. Probably will need to inform MommaMusky about that one.