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Showing posts from August, 2024

Faith and Friends

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If I were to ask people who know Faith what one of her favorite activities is, I am pretty sure they would all say the same thing: socializing. Faith absolutely loves people. She has been a social butterfly ever since she was little.  She has always enjoyed going to therapy because she loves meeting new people, even those in the waiting room. Doctor appointments are also great because she gets to meet new nurses. She pretty much makes friends wherever she goes!  Faith and friends blowing out birthday candles when she turned 7  During her first years in school, she easily made friends with her classmates. Sadly, though, as the kids got older and since she was limited in her mobility, these friendships faded. When we pulled her out of school altogether in order to homeschool her, the hardest part was not having any friends.  Thankfully, we lived in a building that had a community room. Faith and I would often hang out there for a change of scenery. She would sit and wa...

50 Years Ago Today: My First Open Heart Surgery

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I'm tired today. And a bit stressed. I've been dealing with trying to get approved to go to Mayo to get my pacemaker replaced and it hasn't been fun. But today I'm also thinking about how it was 50 years ago today that I had my first open heart surgery. It was called a Waterston shunt and was supposed to improve blood flow and cyanosis. It didn't help my cyanosis much, though because I still had blue lips and fingernails afterward.  Me as a baby with my parents and brother.  Me at 5 1/2 months old, 2 weeks before my first open heart surgery.  It's amazing that my parents were even able to navigate the medical world at that time. They lived in rural Montana and then western North Dakota. Somehow, they managed to find a pediatric cardiologist in Bismarck who referred them to the University of Minnesota. Up until I had a heart catheterization, they had no idea what was going on with my heart.  The doctors just thought that I had a hole in my heart, which is why I ...