Ramblings...

The second installment of Ramblings ...

Got a Dyson vaccuum cleaner this week! Probably the most exciting thing to happen to me a long time, which is kind of sad, but I am seriously in some mad type of love with this thing. It cleans so amazingly well, the closeted neat freak in me (since I live in a teeny house with clutter) just wants to hug it all day long.

Attended The Heart of a Child fundraiser last night where I had the chance to speak to Drew's surgeon again, in person, for the first time in nearly one year. One year. It's been just under one year since Drew's heart was mended by this amazing man. He is far too modest, but I suppose that's how he has to be. The truth is, he saves lives. The truth is, he can't save every life. And I guess that must be incredibly hard to live with. But, he saved my son, and for that, I will be eternally grateful. (I also won a really cool educational box o' goodies for Drew!!!)

Received a message from a Heart Dad (please check previous post) and also, please check out Lucky 10 on Etsy for some SUPER COOL CHD Awareness jewelry. It's seriously beautiful and very cool. Thanks for posting on my blog!

Maggie and The Olympics...in the midst of my disgust at NBC for showing that Georgian luger crashing to his death not once, not twice, but about FOUR times, we discovered that Maggie had nearly destroyed one of her nails on her front paw. So, while the Opening Ceremonies teased us from the living room, we corralled her in the bathroom and tried to figure out how to fix it. We decided to leave it alone, trying to keep the nail intact, 'til the morning when we took her to the vet. She spent the remainder of the evening hiding from us and now, sports an awesome bandage on her paw that she is currently trying to consume.

Lastly, I woke up to chocolate this morning...Godiva chocolate...YUM-O! But, that wasn't the best part...the best part was my very first card from Drew. He scribbled me a masterpiece that I will cherish my whole life. *sigh* Does it get any better than Drew? I don't think so.

Remembering and Making a Difference

I ask that you keep a family close to my heart in your thoughts and prayers. Today and tomorrow are going to be extremely difficult for this heart family here in the Metro Detroit area.

These are the days set aside by them to honor their little man, Colin, who passed away on Sunday night. I am honored to be attending the visitation this evening and pay my respects to one our newest Angels, while supporting his parents and family the best I can. I am saddened beyond words, too, that this is where I will be this evening. This isn't how the journey was supposed to go, it was not supposed to take this turn for this little guy. God has a purpose in this turn in the road, I know He does, but right now it is hard to see what that might be. Words fail me right now, I cannot properly express my emotions, but I know that part of my journey is to honor our Angels...and so, there I will be tonight, because there is no place else I should be.

I know Angels like Colin were sent here to teach the world about pure love and a fighting spirit, but perhaps these Angels were also sent here to help fuel our fire, encouraging us to create awareness in ways we haven't in the past...and that message is being heard by parents who need to hear it. Just last night, a new CHD Warrior's defects were detected. She is 5 weeks old and her Mom noticed a friend's FB profile picture had changed to reflect CHD Awareness Week. She asked her friend about CHD and, last night, noticed that her daughter was having breathing issues. When they arrived at the E.R., she demanded her daughter be screened for CHD...and they found something. Maybe if her friend hadn't been so inclined to educate others about CHD, this mother may have missed this sign and not insisted on her daughter being screened for it.

Pretty powerful stuff.

Reaching Out...One Shirt at a Time

Yesterday at Kindermusik, Drew and I sported our CHD best.

We both wore CHD shirts in recognition of CHD Awareness Week.

I wore my "I (heart) A Child With a CHD" shirt and he wore his Big House, Big Heart shirt that states when his heart was mended and lists out Warriors and Angels on the back.

I expected some stares, maybe even some questions, I did not expect to meet another heart mom this way. I don't know why, really. It's such a common birth defect, I guess it only makes sense that I would.

We had a new mom and kiddo in our class yesterday and I noticed her reading Drew's shirt...REALLY reading it. Taking in the words, getting closer so she could absorb them. I thought, "wow, cool, she's learning today and I can be a part of educating another Mom."

After class, she came up to me ...

"What problems did your son's heart have?"

I started in with my normal explanation, "He was born with two Congenital Heart Defects and had Open Heart Surgery when he was 9 months old..."

She said, "I know...so did my son...I was wondering which ones he had."

I said, "Your son is a heart kid too? Wow! My son had PS and ASD."

Her son had TGA and ASD and underwent surgery at CHM, just like Drew. His Cardio is Dr. Turner, whom Drew had as well, and his surgeon was Dr. Delius, also Drew's surgeon.

She told me that she had never before met another heart family and that Drew's shirt made her very emotional, in a good way. She was happy to know of another kid out there like her son. I invited her to join us in IMH and she seemed to welcome the invitation.

See what a simple thing like wearing a shirt can do? It can reach families who thought they were alone in this and show them that they're not. That there's a sea of families, wading through this mess we call CHD, in the same boat as she is. And that we are all there for one another.

One shirt at a time ... one day at a time ... we're getting there slowly but surely.

The Low Down on our 1st Fundraiser!

Last night was an amazing experience.

What we managed to pull off in only 2 months time was incredible.

The response was phenomenal. Everyone we spoke to, everyone our spouses spoke to, everyone our event managers spoke to stated they were having a great time. People were getting into bidding wars over some of the bigger auction items, pushing the bids up and up, increasing our final numbers by leaps and bounds...

CHD Families in Metro Detroit thank you!

We are excited to announce that we believe we shall do this again next year, same place, perhaps same weekend, make it an annual "kickoff" event, seeing as the start of Awarness Week will be two days after this Saturday in February. I have to give some MAJOR props here ...

To Jen, for running all over town, soliciting donations and wheeling and dealing. For getting both locations for the event. For hosting meetings at her house. For selflessly giving of her time to IMH while also raising her two young boys, working and taking care of her personal responsibilities. I could never thank you enough!

To Julie, for sharing her talent for graphic design with us, for coming up with our "theme," for designing and putting together our programs, our invitations, our bid sheets, our auction item spreadsheet, our processes and responsibilities for the evening, etc, etc, etc... For driving 45mins-90mins multiple times to meet with us, to stuff comfort bags, to attend support meetings and learn about why we do this. For making our cause YOUR cause. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

To Andrea, for being our financial guru! For handling all the payments, the guest list and assigning bid numbers. For setting us up to take payments online. For always being willing to help with anything, even though you just started back to work full time for the first time since having your baby girl. For being my right hand woman since May! You rock girlie!


To Krista, for jumping in, feet first, without hesitation in November after only joining up with us in September. For being willing to take on more responsibility than you originally signed up for! For the amazing slideshow! For the AWESOME auction items you procured. For speaking at the event and allowing me to do what I do best, stay in the background and mingle, working the crowd one person at a time. For making me laugh all night!

To Melonie and Lisa, for being willing to jump on board and do whatever you can to help. Melonie, for the poster (which was AMAZING) and still being willing to help where you can, even though you are very busy with your family and work. Lisa, for driving 45mins-1hr to meet with us, for making our cause YOUR cause.

To everyone, for how WELL we all work together!!! We made an amazing team and I am so proud of this event!

And lastly, to the two men in my life ...


My amazing husband, Bill, for putting up with a stressed out and frazzled wife for the last couple of weeks as I fretted over getting things done and was out of the house at meetings and doing prep work until midnight. For allowing me to be on the computer all the time, working on things and figuring out how to improve what we were doing via email or FB chat with the ladies. For coming to the event and schmoozing with all our guests. For upping the bids and helping us raise more money. For standing by me and beside me since the beginning!


My beautiful, courageous, funny little man! You are my inspiration and the reason why I do this. For you and for all your friends, be they a warrior or an angel. I do this so your children don't have to endure open heart surgery, or heart caths or vent tubes or chest tubes. I do this so other parents may be as fortunate as Mommy is and will see their babies grow into toddlers and beyond. I am so thankful to have you in my life. I thank God daily for the blessing of having you as my son. I love you!!!

CHD Awareness Week (2/7/10-2/14/10)

IT'S CHD AWARENESS WEEK!

How are you spending the week?? I'd love to hear from you.

We kicked it off right last night when It's My Heart - Metro Detroit hosted our 1st Annual Raise a glass to CHD Awareness Wine Tasting and Silent Auction Fundraiser! We had about 75 people attend and all of our AWESOME auction items went to good homes. We were incredibley blessed by the event and, when I have some pictures, I am going to devote a post to the event (look for it this week).

Our plans for the week include:

Using the blog to promote awareness by posting facts about CHD and/or "Faces of CHD" stories every day until Sunday

Wearing articles of clothing promoting awareness... OR just red with an IMH button

IMH-Metro Detroit has a display at the Awareness event at UofM's Mott Children's Hospital and flyers posted at Children's Hospital of Michigan.

On Saturday, IMH will be attending a fundraiser with Heart of a Child to raise money for CHM's Cardiovascular Surgery Department.

For today, please enjoy the video that played at our event last night! A big thanks to Krista for doing this for us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqSFT229s1w

I Just Discovered ...

2 amazing new blogs!

And since my hot linking abilities stink, here are the URLs:

http://littlehomeontherange.blogspot.com (I believe I found this on The Macs blog)

and

http://theprudenthomemaker.com/winter (this is for the meal plan)

Talk about organized!!! Both blogs, but especially Blog #2, are written by Moms who KNOW how to meal plan, are extremely organized and are generous enough to share their talents with the rest of us. I pray that, as I learn from them, I can at least get the meal planning under control.

My friend, Heather, also let me in on a site (Just Mommies) that has an awesome cleaning and organization schedule. So, I hope to get better at creating a schedule that both works and doesn't drive me crazy from this site as well.

Just passing it along to all my friends in the same boat as me ...

And if you know how to hot link, won't you PLEASE share with me? Thanks in advance!!

Sidelined

I have been sidelined

By my foot

Getting old STINKS

I am in the midst of trying to figure out what the heck is going on with my foot that I seemed to have injured at some point late last week. I took yesterday off running and will repeat Week 3 beginning tomorrow, for only 2 days this week, in preparation of beginning Week 4 next week.

If my foot cooperates

If it doesn't, I guess it's a trip to the Doctor for me to see if this is, indeed, plantar fasciitis (PF) or something else...

I am hoping for something else

Everything I have read about PF makes it sounds like it is manageable, but not curable, and a total pain in the rear. I will need to get special orthotics, watch what other types of shoes I wear, probably get new running shoes (and mine are BRAND NEW as it is), tape my foot, stretch and possibly even wear a brace (or, a rainboot my friend, Juli, tells me!) to bed. And this is all after initially resting my foot for a few weeks.

DAMN IT

Excuse the swears, but I just got into running, I was enjoying it, and now, this. I have weight to lose, muscles to tone and a body and mind to challenge with this C25K program. I guess I will have to hit the road again tomorrow and figure this all out. Until next time ...

On a sidenote, when did Jillian from The Biggest Loser turn into a Psychiatrist?!