Love is in the Air

Valentines Day is coming. Run for your lives!!! While I’m not exactly a sucker for Hallmark holidays, I’m also not one to turn down tokens of affections. A little chocolate here… A few roses there… It makes you feel special. In my house, however, love is expressed in slightly different ways. I’ll give you a second to get your mind out of the gutter, you perverts.

My husband is a mechanical engineer for a biotech company. When we met, I hadn’t started my journey to Surgical Tech Extraordinaire, but anything and everything medical made me all giddy and swoony (Is “swoony” a word? Well spell-check isn’t flagging it so it is now, suckers.) On dates, my boyfriend (now husband) would tell me about the crazy medical devices he was working on and I would listen, enraptured at the idea of teeny-tiny pacemakers and intra-ventricular monitoring systems. I saw my professional future in using the technology he created and I saw my personal future in the amazing human being he is.

I knew it was love the day he brought me an aortic valve. He came home from work and announced, “I’ve got something for you.” I figured he’d gone out of his way to indulge me in one of my weird cravings like circus peanuts or sea salt caramel pecan ice cream. (Which coincidentally, I would love to eat now if it wasn’t -8 outside. Damn it!) Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic jar. My immediate thought was, “If that’s all the ice cream you bought, I am sorely disappointed in you.” As I got closer, I saw it-a beautifully crafted porcine aortic valve floating in formaldehyde. (So romantic!) It was awesome. He could have gotten down on one knee and proposed to me with it and I wouldn’t have even noticed the lack of a ring. Seriously.

As time went on, his support of my medical career journey was unwavering. He didn’t just support me, but actively participated in my success. He did everything from testing me on medical terminology on a movie theater floor at a midnight showing of The Hobbit to building a PC partition on my Macbook so I could use PC-based surgical tech study software. (If that last part made no sense-don’t worry. I didn’t understand it either, but the software worked so…yeah.)

He proposed February 13th, midway through my first semester of tech school. As we planned the wedding, I knew I wanted to somehow represent our shared interest in all things medical. I found an invitation design online and ran with it. Some people thought it was gross. Others thought I’d completely lost my mind, but to me it was perfect.

Front and inside of my actual wedding invitation... Cool right?

Every day that passes, I count myself lucky to have a better half that laughs at my stories about slap-hammer innuendos, code browns, and my inability to hold a conversation with a surgeon without bringing up “Sharknado” (What? It’s a cinematic masterpiece.). He shows me incredible medical devices: feed-through components dipped in gold that, to me, are more beautiful than any piece of jewelry you could find in a store. (Nope, he definitely did NOT go to Jared for that…)

I may have initially fallen in love over a heart valve, but it’s the marvelous, caring heart of my husband that I truly treasure.

Until next time, stay sterile.