Buckeye Mike

Good afternoon everyone. I wanted to take a few minutes this afternoon to bring you all up to speed on what is going on with the effort to get Tiffany on the heart transplant list. When I last wrote, we were waiting on Tiffany to have a biopsy on her left breast. that occurred Monday morning. Early today, the results came back. Benign*. Good news, right? Except, the asterisk is not a mistype. While there is no cancer present, the cells they looked at were "pre-cancerous" and she is considered high risk for developing breast cancer in the future. So what does that mean? A heart (or any organ) transplant recipient has to be immunosuppressed for the rest of their life to limit the risk of rejection of the donated organ. If Tiffany is immunosuppressed and the cancer develops, it would spread quickly and lead to the worst possible outcome. So whats next? Well on Tuesday, November 1st, 2016, Tiffany will see a surgical oncologist. He will explain what the concerns are, and li...

Good afternoon everyone! If it is your first time here, welcome to my blog. In the past this has been a place for me to share thoughts and stories about everyday life. And while I haven't written in awhile, I decided today was the day to jump back in, as this is probably going to be the easiest way to keep everyone updated as we hopefully get a heart transplant in the near future. To catch you all up, my wife Tiffany suffered her 8th and most severe heart attack on October 1. It was a scary day in which we almost lost her. She spent the next 2 weeks at the Ohio State University -  Ross Heart Hospital, where the doctors determined that she would need a heart transplant. They put her through every test you can possibly imagine, and ultimately recommended her to the State of Ohio Solid Organ Transplantation Consortium for a heart transplant, who approved her almost immediately. All we had to do was wait for one more test to clear, and Emily (her amazing transplant coordinator at OSU...

I never had a daughter. I don't know what it's like to buy a Barbie Doll. Or dress up as Cinderella for your little girl's princess party. Or meet some zit faced teenage boy at the front door to instill the fear of God in him . And while I genuinely miss not having those experiences, I also will never have to meet that acne covered kid, which lessens my chances of ever going to prison. And I never have to pay for a wedding. So I suppose that, while I never had a Daddy's Little Girl, best not to second guess the man upstairs. He knew what he was doing. Instead, he gave me 3 awesome gifts. My guys. I will never forget that moment. It was 11:30 pm or so on August 26, 1998. The nurse's name was Ava. She turned to me, with him wrapped up in his little blanket, and said "Would you like to hold your son?" I took him from her, a little hesitantly, and said these words to him for the first time: "Hello, John-Michael David Slusher. I am your Dad" ...

Huge even from the outside John and Tanner Tanner is eager to get inside From the luxury suite See the Buckeye helmet? This screen is 160 feet long and 71 feet high O-H-I-O Me and the guys Man I outkicked my coverage Tiffany and Susie Look familiar? Hanging in a large storage room Cowboy Cheerleaders locker room Umm yeah, ya know Cowboys locker room In front of Zeke's locker Susie in front of Zeke's locker Tanner at the podium John at the podium Tiffany and Susie on the Star at the 50 yard line The boys and I on the star Tanner scored. What an awesome time! I think I am now not going to hate the Cowboys as much as I have in the past!

Do you have a bucket list? You know, a list of things you want to do before you die? They made a movie about it, with Jack Nicklaus and Morgan Freeman. 2 elderly men in failing health set out on a world wide adventure to cross things off a list that one of them had spent a lifetime making. And while I cannot recall all of the things they did off hand, I do remember that the last thing on the list was to see something majestic. And they did. I have had a bucket list too, a whole litany of things I would like to do before my time on earth ends. I have been fortunate enough to cross a few items off, like auditioning for a commercial or going to Seattle. Other moments, like skydiving or trying stand up comedy, have yet to come. However, what I have found is that my own bucket list is fluid, and often I do not realize that something was on it until the moment actually arrives. That was the case this past weekend. The idea started simply enough. Tiffany and I wanted to get away for a wee...

This month will mark 6 years I have been writing this blog. That seems almost impossible to me as I never was able to finish anything I started, let alone sustain something like this for that long. Yet here I am. And while the posts may not come as frequently as they used too, I often go back and read them and watch the roller coaster ride my life was taking in the first couple of years, and how it has stabilized over time since then. And as we approach next week's 72 month mark on my personal journal, it was only recently that I have begun to discover why it has come this far. Its a cool story, and I hope you will continue to read while I tell it. I will begin by telling you a story. Just a few days ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. He was commenting about how much change he has seen in me over the last few years. From putting down cigarettes and alcohol to losing weight to the change in me as a professional, he said that I am an inspiration to him and the p...

I have a confession to make. Brace yourself, you are probably never going to look at me the same way again. A deep dark secret that only my wife has known until recently, just saying the words brings more shame to me than you can possibly imagine. I mean what kind of person I must be to be hiding this. Worse yet, what kind of person does that? Ready? Here goes....... I have not been to the dentist since I was 9. (dramatic pause, I will wait for you to process that and try to re-focus) I remember the day well. The dentist was somewhere on Colerain Avenue in Cincinnati. From the light in my face to the dentist's hand in my mouth to the needle they stuck in the back of my jaw, I was not a big fan of that experience. And I never went back. Sure I thought about it in my twenties and thirties. I would hear other people talk about doing it. Like all the cool kids were get root canals and fillings, but stuck in my head was the memory of that smell and the mean dentist yelli...