Still Determined to Find the Silver Linings!

Since the last post, I reached the one year anniversary since my heart surgery!  It fell on January 31st, and it got me thinking about where I was a year ago and where I am now.  Not just with my heart, everything is just peachy on that end, but where I am in life.  

I was so upset a few months after my surgery because I was feeling as though I hadn't accomplished anything with my life.  I was living at my parents house (again!) with my two girls and my husband and it was more difficult than I had anticipated.  But my wonderful husband reminded me that I had accomplished what I had wanted to do when we had first met.  

I guess it's a pretty typical first or second date question, when you ask the other person where they see themselves in the future or what they want to be.  Or at least it is for me, apparently.  Anyway, when he asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I hesitated.  I knew my answer would probably send him running for the hills and since we worked together that could be awkward.  But I told him the truth.  I wanted to be a mom.  And not just be a mom, I meant I wanted to get married and have children (that I could support) and have a career that allows me time with them.  I wanted to raise them to be good people and learn from my mistakes in life, and I wanted to marry someone who wanted children as much as I did, and would be there for our children.  

Minus a few bumps in the road, I have done that.  I have two beautiful girls who, despite some bratty stages, are wonderful.  I have a job that I can work as much or as little as I would like that provides good insurance for my family.  And above all of that, I have a husband who never stops working for our family.  He killed himself for a year trying to cover my medical expenses from my surgery and paying off other credit cards and bills so that he could go back to school for his masters, which he is doing now.  

Now, unfortunately we did have a development that shook me to my core.  As you all know, I never knew about my heart condition until I was in my surgery delivering Sophia, my youngest daughter.  Since my condition is hereditary, my husband and I have had to have hundreds of conversations about whether or not we are going to have any more children.  When we got married we had decided that three felt like a good number for us.  However, bringing another child into the world KNOWING they could have a very good chance at inheriting my "super-special" heart is different than having children and THEN finding out about your condition. 

Having said this, when Sophia was sick earlier this winter we found out that she has a heart murmur.  Immediately, I had her pediatrician make her an appointment to see a pediatric cardiologist.  I'm also pretty sure I cried myself to sleep and cursed my bad genes.  Yesterday was her appointment and we didn't really find out anything.  The only thing the doctor really had to say was that she is too young to show any signs but the odds are not in our favor.  Then she was poked on for about 20 minutes at the lab to draw some blood for genetic testing so that we can find out once and for all if Penny and Sophia have whatever gene I have that causes the condition.  

I keep going back and forth between level-headed person hearing heath information and taking it in strides and super-crazy Momma Bear who wants to curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep and curse my genes again.  Today I'm focusing on the positive.  Those same genes could mean she gets my awesome sense of humor and favorite music styles, or my ridiculous habit of crying at anything from music (again) to movies, books, pins on Pinterest...hell, even commercials.  She could get my hair that stays stick straight until you hit puberty, and then suddenly curls and waves appear and you have NO idea what to do with them.  Part of me even thinks her eyes could still turn blue *fingers crossed!!!*  So for the one bad gene I probably passed on, there are lots of other good ones that she can get, too!  Her big sister already inherited my fantastic fashion sense *see Facebook pictures* so I think as far as good genes go, there's plenty to go around between the two of them and probably any other sibling that joins our crazy little family.  

And, as always, I am humbled and extremely touched at how much my family and friends have once again rallied behind us.  I am so lucky and fortunate to have you all in my life, and I'm going to change the subject because apparently I can even make MYSELF cry....

For the Meiris side, today we mentioned a family reunion and I WANT TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN!  It has been TEN YEARS since the last one!  That is just too darn long.  I don't care where we have it, count me in!  Tennessee sounds like a blast since that was the first place that was thrown out there, and I plan to show up all the boys again with my fishing skills =)

Oh yeah, one last thing!  My totally awesome sister was contacted by this totally awesome compounding pharmacy that makes this cream for scars.  So she wrote me a prescription and even with my insurance the price was well over $500, so I politely asked them to cancel it and thanked them for their time.  Well, their pharmacist called me back the next day and told me that since my sister is a physician, they were going to extend a professional courtesy for me and fill it free of charge.  WOO HOO!  I've only been using it for about 3 days so no results yet but I'm excited to see what it will do for me!  The entire scar is about 4-5 inches long and the bottom 2-3 inches has already flattened and turned flesh colored instead of bright pink, but the top 2 inches is still puffy and pink and it drives me crazy.  Mederma makes me want to scratch my skin off, so I'm very excited to try this new stuff out.  I refer to it as the "Gold-Infused Miracle Cream" and hopefully it has good results. 


Anyway...that's all, folks!