Recent Happenings

July has been pretty low key, but there have definitely been some highlights. We try to go swimming every Monday and get Sonic shakes afterwards. We've been rained out the last two weeks, but we really need rain, so we don't want to complain too much about it. I miss swimming, but I love the rain :)

I think the biggest news is that I heard back about my MFT exam results . . . I PASSED!!!! I was told the results would be sent to the state on July 14th, so I assumed I wouldn't find out whether I passed or not until the state received the scores and sent out something to notify me. The company that runs the test apparently sent out letters stating if the applicant passed or failed (I still don't know what my score was) before they sent the results to the state. I got my letter on Thursday, but we forgot to get the mail that day. Rob brought the mail in the next morning as he was leaving for work and he discovered the letter. He opened it and came running upstairs to wake me up (I am NOT a morning person and sleep in whenever possible). Being suddenly awoken to your husband bouncing around the bedroom is a bit confusing. It took me a minute or two to understand what he was saying and react appropriately. I passed. The last major hurdle and I did it. We still have to wait for everything to be processed and for my license to be issued, but I've done it :)

I know I jumped ahead a bit with that news, so let me backtrack . . .

As usual, we watched the fireworks on the 3rd. We always go to the same place that's out of the way so we get to see the fireworks, but don't get stuck in traffic afterwards. This was Laura's first year watching them. She wasn't a huge fan of the noise, but eventually she got used to it and she let Megan uncover her ears so she could turn around and watch.

Bret and Kora invited us over for the 4th. It was perfect for us as it gave us a chance to get out of the house, but I could take it easy. They rented a bounce house with a huge slide that they turned into a water slide. The kids ate something when we got there, then the older five escaped to the backyard and we didn't see them again until it was time to set off fireworks. Megan said it was the best 4th of July ever :)

I didn't get our traditional photo of all of us in flag shirts, but I managed to get a photo of the kids.

Rob finally decided on my graduation present . . . a new Cricket. A couple of years after we were married we found a little black kitten who became my baby. We named him Cricket because he was tiny and black and jumped around all over the place. He grew into a huge cat that looked more like a panther than a Cricket and had a personality the size of a panther. He and I always had a special connection. He died when I was pregnant with Kylie. We got Max, but I never really connected to Max the way I had connected to Cricket. When Jack was a baby we ended up with another little black kitten. The name Cricket fit him and he was Cricket II. I didn't get as close to him as I had to the original Cricket, but he was my cat. He died this past New Years Eve. We weren't planning on ever getting another Cricket, but it came up a few weeks ago and it felt right. Rob said he saw my eyes light up and that hasn't happened much lately. We went out to a shelter the next day.

I knew who my new cat was the instant I saw him. He looks just like the other two Crickets, but is more like the first Cricket than I thought possible. He is feisty and spunky and sweet and more than a bit crazy. Like me I guess :) We had a special connection from the first time I saw him. He sleeps on my neck like the first Cricket did and gives me kisses and sleeps next to me at night. He steals my food and won't take no for an answer and bounces all over the place attacking nothing, just to bounce. He loves the kids. They carry him around everywhere and make things for him. He is the first animal I've seen that actually uses the things made for him. The kids made him a little bed out of a clementine box and a towel and he loves it. That means so much to the kids and they love him :) He even curls up with Laura when she takes naps. He makes me smile :)

Something else that makes me smile is the office I'll be using. It's not technically MY office as I'm not paying rent, but I'll be using it most of the time. There is one other therapist who uses it one day a week, but it's mostly mine. I picked out all the furniture, but used items already in the office for the walls and bookshelves. I'll have to find the perfect pictures and decorations slowly :) I love the way it turned out! Old fashioned and professional :) Plus I really wanted it to blue. Blue seems really calming to me and it's the color of the ocean.

Heart Update

This is a hard post to write. It's taken me a couple of weeks to get to the point that I could.

I had a cardiologist appointment a few weeks ago, primarily to see if the EECP treatments made any difference. They didn't. I am just about exactly where I was when I was diagnosed 15 months ago. I got much worse last summer and they managed to get me back to where I had originally been, but no progress beyond that has been made. We asked the cardiologist what my prognosis was at this point. He said that in his experience, if I haven't shown any improvement by this point, I never will.

According to my cardiologist, this is the equivalent of being told I have stage one cancer, but it's not responding to treatment. It is still a relatively mild case of cardiomyopathy. It doesn't really matter how mild it is though if they can't do anything about it. That just means I'll probably have a longer time before it gets to a critical point. No idea how long that will be.

It seems so weird to type this up. I feel as if it couldn't possibly be true. I spoke to a friend recently who is dealing with some pretty heavy medical stuff with some of his family members. He made the comment that things weren't really as bad as they sounded. I remarked that in my experience, it never seems real. Until you tell people what's going on and see the looks on their faces. I think I respond to that more strongly than others might as I read people for a living. I can tell most of the time what people are thinking.

I'm sorry that we've pretty much disappeared from everything. I appreciate all the help we've been offered. I'm so grateful we are surrounded by friends who love us and want to help. Unfortunately the help offered makes us realize all over again what's going on. We're not trying to be rude. We just can't quite deal with it yet ourselves. 

We aren't giving up. My cardiologist is referring me to a heart failure specialist in Dallas, one that he sends his hopeless cases to, the patients that need heart transplants. He says we have a head start as I'm not there yet. We may get to that point, but only about 50% of patients even survive the surgery, so that is a last ditch effort.

We've decided that as western medicine hasn't helped, we're adding eastern medicine to the mix. I'm continuing to go to the cardiologist and take my medications, but I am now seeing an acupuncturist twice a week, my chiropractor twice a month, and I'm working with a master herbalist as well. The acupuncture has improved my energy levels a bit and helped me to sleep better. She says she can treat my symptoms, but that it doesn't heal things like failing hearts. The chiropractor is using pressure points on my back to stimulate healing or something like that. The master herbalist gave me a more natural substitute for lasix, which I developed a sensitivity to. My cardiologist told me only to take the lasix when I absolutely needed to due to my reactions to it. Hopefully this herb will help replace it. The herbalist also had me start taking two other herbs that help the heart to heal. I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting to one of them (cayenne), but I'm working on increasing my dose.

We recognize where that means we are. I've heard of acquaintances who were diagnosed with major illnesses and I remember what I thought when their treatments didn't work and they turned to alternative treatments. I'm trying to figure out how to balance reality with hope and right now that's a hard balance to find. One moment I'll be in a place where I know I can beat this; where I refuse to give up and I'm willing to try anything as I know there must be an answer somewhere. The next moment I start thinking about what I need to realistically do to prepare for where this will probably go. I don't know how I'll ever be ok with writing my children letters for Rob to keep "just in case" or talking about who I want as pall bearers.

I hope and believe that I will recover from this somehow. It gives me an amazing view into what it's like for people to go through being diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness; one that I don't think I ever would have understood if I hadn't experienced it on my own. I'm hoping that this is just another thing that I get to go through so I can understand and help my clients. If that is the case, I don't ever want to forget what this feels like. If it isn't, maybe this will help someone someday.