Well February is here and love really is all around! There are hearts everywhere (if you go into any store!) but hearts are always on our brain around here. Owen just had a holter monitor a few weeks ago. It is supposed to be 24 hours of monitoring but he always breaks out in a rash/reaction a few hours into it. This time I treated him with benedryl before bedtime, and Chris removed the monitors when he got home from work. It is supposed to obtain data from play, rest, and sleep. He did about 9 hours I think this time. And still has the rash... Cream being applied twice a day!
This winter/spring is so so so so so so different from last spring. Last winter/spring we didn't even have a date yet for Owen's surgery. (It has been feeling like spring hence my winter/spring terminology!). We were a bundle of nerves all the time, worried about everything, plus a semi newborn to boot. This spring life is a bit calmer, a bit more relaxed, as our worries are calmed. They are never gone, but they are a little quieter than last year, that is for sure. I was talking to my sister the other day, so grateful that Ara was as young as she was when O had his surgery. It was very tricky with both of them, but if it were this spring, that girl wouldn't last 5 minutes in the hospital! She makes it around our 2.5 acres in no time, so being confined to a hospital room would be torture for her!
The crazy thing that still gets me to this day is that all of the heart stuff with Owen actually happened. I dabble back and forth between extreme reality of the now being so awesome and then looking back at what he (and we) have gone through. It is truly astonishing. I was so stoked today, talking to a mom at preschool, who told me she "had no idea" about Owen's heart...And then preceded to tell me that her brother had a repair as an infant. I guess the stats are real, it really is 1/100 (or 1/110 depending on your source) of congenital heart defects.
There are so many I'm thankfuls, I'm gratefuls.... It was so sweet for O to be our first. We stopped everything and could stop everything to be there for him and only him. That was a true blessing for us! He is also doing so well that people don't even know he has "half a heart" now! How cool is that! It really makes my day when people hear his story and are amazed by him...You can only imagine as his mom how that makes me feel.
Welp I'm gonna go take my shower I've been looking forward to all day! Thursdays are our busy day, preschool, errands (traders, target, joanns, and 4 mile jog), then home for lunch, then speech therapy at another school... and we had Becca and her mom over today for our field playtime. So I've been in my workout clothes all day. Ew.
I chat with adults all day at work about eating for wellness, longevity, and health...I really would love it if people lived like they only get one body...We all feel like we have more time, we can procrastinate taking care of ourselves.. (I'm guilty at times too!) But with our nutrition, fitness, and mental health there really is no better time. Baby steps count, and should be taken as opposed to nothing at all! Taking care of myself via eating well and exercising comes naturally, as that is how I was raised. If you're a raiser, then remember that! And if you're already raised, change is still very possible and will be successful via either baby steps or extreme drastic overnight changes! It's up to you! So, what do you want to do?????
I upped my darn "steps goal" on the fitbit 2 weeks ago... From 10,000 to 12,000. And I feel so dumb for not doing this sooner. I was meeting or exceeding my goal 5/7 days per week, finding I would really exceed it a few days and then be really under the other days... In the 2 weeks since I've upped it, I haven't met it one day, and all the other days have been thousands of steps above it. Why didn't I just push it sooner!?
One more thing, I'm doing a virtual half marathon next week! Actually it is 2/7-2/14, you have 7 days to complete the entire half, it is an honor system distance event. I did it last year and had a total blast. The best part is that Mended Little Hearts sponsors it and the money raised goes towards welcome bags for new parents of babies with heart defects.
So... goals? What are your fitness goals? Anything new you're trying?
I'm hitting the showers!
We know about CHD at our house..DH has had 2 open hearts,the last one to replace his bicuspid aortic valve..2 years later he's dropped 40 pounds,works out 5 days a week and has done 2 5ks! DD had a coil occlusion done at 8 months for a PDA repair..still has 2 small vsd's but they're not worrying about them..
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