Caelen Gorman: October 2014

Last night Caelen was blessed with the opportunity to meet his favorite singers, Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard from the country band Florida Georgia Line. They were absolutely amazing, and so gracious with their time. Their team put us last in the meet and greet so we could spend a little extra hang time with them. Brian and Tyler signed Caelens guitar and offered to jam with him, but C was so nervous he wouldn't get off my shoulder. They tried talking to him and trying to coax him into interacting with us, but Caelen wouldn't budge. They tried so hard, and I've got nothing but gratitude and love for Brian and Tyler. They are seriously the nicest guys.

But come on, has anyone ever seen Caelen get stage fright??? He had so many questions to ask them, and he literally clammed up. It was funny, but kind of disappointing for Caelen because I know how badly he wanted to talk to them and play guitars with them. There was so much I wanted to tell them about Caelen in our brief interaction before they went onstage, but I knew how busy they were, and already graced us with extra time.

I just wish they could have known about how much time he's spent in the hospital, his struggles, his need for a new heart. But how his half a heart is full of love for FGL. I wanted to tell them how their videos are the first thing Caelen plays every morning, and how he studies them to mimic their moves, and wears jeans every day because they wear them in their videos. How Caelen knows every word that every person speaks in all their behind the scenes videos of the making of the videos. And how Caelen sets up his toys on top of a big dump truck to recreate their This is how we roll video. How he sings their songs throughout the day, and when he doesnt want to do something in therapy, he breaks out some lyrics to distract the therapists, they're catching on to that by the way. Then before bed, he puts on his own music video and rocks out to their songs again. And how he so badly wants to watch them make a music video, and watch all the cameras, the actors, directors, and I can't forget big trucks. Maybe one day Caelen will get the chance again.

But overall, it was an absolutely amazing experience, and I can't thank Brian, Tyler and their team enough for giving us that gift. Plus...they totally rocked it!! How lucky is Caelen that his first concert was FGL? Mine was Paul Anka, thanks mom.

Aunt Kelly was thrilled to squeeze on Tyler's abs. No shame in her game.

I should back up this story though with what I believe are once again, Angels among us.

2 years ago yesterday, Caelen had his third open heart surgery, the Fontan, reversed or "taken down" after 3 miserable weeks of struggling and then the Plastic Bronchitis diagnosis, because his body simply couldn't handle the new circulation. He went down in the afternoon and I got to play "our song" to him, Blake Sheltons "God gave me you" which helps to calm him. The photo below is Caelen being wheeled back to the OR to have his Fontan taken down.

What we didn't know at the time was how rough the day would go. After the team was done in the cath lab, Caelen started desaturating and Dr Rome had to go right back in, basically doing a double cardiac catheterization. That was a long and crappy day and night. When I re-read that post from 2 years ago, I remembered the Angels God sent to us that night. If you get a chance, go back in the blog to http://caelengorman.blogspot.com/2012/10/post-cathglenn-tan.html

Fast forward exactly 2 years, and Caelen got to go to his very first concert, and it was his favorite band. No way this was a coincidence.

Here's where the Angels come in to play. It took a small army of angels to make yesterday happen, starting with one of our local Fire Captains, Michelle Martin, who got the ball rolling by making calls to figure out how to get Caelen to meet FGL.

Captain Martin, God Bless you for working so hard to make yesterday happen. Your big heart led you to Tara, who called her friend and local DJ Virginia, who called DJ Sammy over at WIRK, our country station. Sammy called FGL's "people" (ha ha, don't you wish you had "people") and together, they scored us a meet and greet with not just FGL, but Jason Aldean too! Plus tickets to the sold out show!!!

Full disclosure, I'm not entirely sure that's how things went down, but I *think* I'm close.

I just want to say a gigantically HUGE Thank You to Captain Martin, Tara, Virginia, Sammy, Stacey (FGL) and of course to Brian and Tyler themselves. Thank you for making one of my miracle boy's dreams come true. Even though Caelen got suddenly shy, he hasn't stopped talking about meeting Tyler and Brian, and telling everyone he has encountered today. He's still singing and playing his now very special signed guitar, and rocking out to all of the FGL videos. We're still exclusively playing FGL in the car, even though I asked today if we could take a break and hear some different groups. That answer was No! But that's ok, after yesterday, FGL can continue to be the first and last thing we hear every day 😄