Jenny- New dreams...New Realities...

I'm at a place I could not have imagined a year ago.  A place where I can dream and bring those dreams to reality.  I have a working heart and we've struggled for so long it was hard to imagine THIS place.  I went to a work function with Jeremy this week and NO ONE cold tell under my pretty, lace cocktail dress I hid a secret.  A secret maze of scars and a robot heart.  I was so amazed and giggled at the thought I can blend in now.  I'm so grateful to finally be here.  We just moved and I packed all the boxes. I moved boxes. I helped unload and I unpacked everything myself.  Being self sufficient isn't something I take lightly.  I can make plans now to travel, plans to take the kids to events and introduce them to new things like horseback riding.

So my new dreams are starting.  I played golf with Jeremy this morning and conquered several flights of stairs to go to this awesome driving range called Top Golf.  Something I would not have been able to do just 3 months. Heck just 6 weeks ago...I found an amazing gym yesterday and I ran 5 whole minutes.  Sure, that doesn't seem like much but to me it was amazing.  I was born with a heart I couldn't use and Dr. Mehdi Razavi built me a new heart.  He gave me one I can LIVE with.

This feeling of guilt is something heart patients struggle with and I am no different.  You meet people in the hospital and you know which ones aren't going to come home.  You vow to never forget them so you always remember to do what you need to do to stay alive.  But they haunt you.  Wondering about them, wishing you exchanged numbers.  I have to tell you about an experience I had a few weeks ago.

I was attending the Woman Heart Houston meeting where me and an AMAZING, FANTASTIC, group of CANTANKEROUS heart patients get together each month. No, it's not the somber, boring meeting you might think. This is a place where we CELEBRATE each other.  We SUPPORT each other, and we understand how the other one feels.  I joked with the table when the waiters walked up and told them we wanted as much fried stuff as they could bring to the table.  We all chuckled.  Then proceeded to order wonderful kale and beet salads and rave about them.

We don't look back at what we can't do anymore, we talk about all the things we want to do in the future.  I met two heart transplant recipients, which was an honor.  What a gift to be in the presence of such brave women.  We talk about how hard it is to trust that these surgeries will "hold" and we are allowed a brief respite to feel safe.  Several of the people there were perfectly fine, then had their aorta tear and they woke up on ventilators with their chests cracked open.  I had several rough times but I always knew when I was having surgery.  Can you imagine how panicked you would be waking up after emergency open heart or bypass surgery? So today, wherever you are in your life, whatever challenges you face, remember to thank GOD that you are here, alive, and breathing.

I looked across the table and the lady looked familiar but I couldn't place where I had met her.
She grabbed my hands after the meeting. She look deep into my eyes and said, "I was so worried about you. Did you get your babies back? How are they?" Then it hit me.  I choked up and I remember where I had met her.  I was in radiology talking to her about my friend's bakery, The Peacebaker, because she makes things heart patients can eat! This was the lady I have often wondered about.  She sat in radiology with me wearing oxygen.  She was surprised to see someone my age with a bad heart and I explained that I too had been on oxygen for months.  I named my oxygen machine "Big Bertha" and refused to address it by any other name. I was there in February getting evaluated for a pacemaker.  We laughed as we waited for our echocardiograms.  We talked about New Orleans, and food, all the things we can't eat anymore but love.  She was a foodie and she was a lovely person.  I'm so happy I was able to find her again.  I can cross her off my list of people to worry about. Because she's back with me where I can support her in her heart fight.

So many things came full circle in that meeting.  Just feeling loved and supported by this group is amazing.  I am so lucky to be alive and able to move now.  We're planning a family vacation, something we have NEVER done. We're making plans for summer fun activities and I'm able to celebrate this summer with the man I love and have been married to for 10 years.  We've lived more in those 10 years then some people do in a lifetime.  I'm so grateful for what we learned about each other in those 10 years, for what I learned about myself.  Lessons maybe we would not have learned without my heart being "special."

So I'm not going to look back with sadness at the athlete I used to be. I'm going to redefine my definitions of things.  I'm going to continue to be grateful for my life, for my family, and for my marriage.  I'm completely unable to even express how grateful I am to have found a doctor who didn't give up on me.  To have friends that rallied around my whole family.  To have parents and in-laws that took my children for months at a time. My doctor told other doctors working with him that I would get through the surgeries, that I was tough enough to handle it.  He was right.  Feeling so blessed.  On to our new adventures....

Jenny