Ryan was born June 1, 1986, He was a special boy on that day....he was a birthday present to his great grandfather, veteran Donald Oertlin. Great grandpa was so excited to share his birthday with his first great grandson. This was one of many special days Ryan would be sharing with us throughout his life.

The week after he was born, our first big family event was when his dad and I walked down the aisle......not at our wedding, but at our graduation. Ryan went to his parents graduation! 

Ryan was hospitalized 4 times:

May 31, 1986 -Ryan had a seizure from a high fever......no worries....he came home on his birthday and we super celebrated knowing that it was nothing serious. Praise God.

When Ryan was about 7 he had an enflamed taste bud on the end of his tongue......THEN he was playing squirt guns with the babysitter and her family and he slipped and bit his tongue in the same place...only making his tongue worse? I took him to the doctor and they said that surgery would be best.....Ryan was scared but excited because he was going to have part of his tongue cut off and he was going to have a "pointy tongue" like the guy in the band "Kiss". I constantly laugh about how scared and excited he was to go through the surgery and show his friends his new pointy tongue.

The next "insident" was when I got a call from his dad that Ry had to get stitches, He set up a rampl on the road and turned his bike into a BMX bike, by taking the seat off! He then ramped the bike and the pole from the seat ended up sticking him in the belly. He took 11 stitches and he now had 2 belly buttons as they were right next to each other and about the same size. He thought that was cool too because this also made him unique to other kids as they only had one belly button. 

The last incident happened May 30, 2016. I called to check on him and he was 3 hours into a nose bleed. I told him I was on my way and we were going to the hospital. As I traveled to Ry, Jessa and I started talking about holidays and how it seems like everything happens around the holidays. We realized that this time 29 years ago, on Memorial Day weekend, Ry had been in the hospital also. It was weird how that conversation went and inside it scared me as much that day as it did 29 years ago. This time Ryan did not get to go home......on the day of his 30th birthday, the doctor came in and introduced us to adenocarcinoma- stage 4. I was a celebration turned into a nightmare that we have yet to wake up from.

So many stories in such a short life time.........I would like to hear your story about Ry and how he created memories for you.......please share.....God Bless YOU! and thanking you for making "Rosey" be who he was.......I love each and every one of you who have been a part of his life story and I haven't even met all of  you.