Happy Lungaversary to Me!!

A year ago today as I was signing a consent to be put on life support, the phone rang and it changed my future. "My" lungs were available! 

I was rushed through the preop process, they found the lungs to be perfectly suited for me and I was wheeled into surgery. 

However, as surgery began, my body finally gave up. They had to do CPR for 10 minutes. They finally did get my heart to play nice and decided to go ahead and put me on bypass and start the surgery and hope for the best, not knowing what kind of brain damage might have occurred from the CPR. 

About 20 hours later I woke up. Heavily sedated, but awake enough to see my parents and Steve standing over me with big worried eyes. I was still intubated but I could see the relief in everyone's eyes through their tears and mine, when they told my I was all finished. They told me that my lungs were perfect and asked if I was feeling ok. I'm pretty sure I shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes at that question, (hee hee) that's when they knew I was going to be ok.  

From the moment I took my first "new" breath, I felt better than I had in years. Of course my body was sore, but those lungs immediately felt like they were right where they were supposed to be. 

My recovery overall has been amazing. Zero rejection from day one, praise God! I still say I'm recovering because I think it's a long physical AND emotional process. My body changed so much in the last year. From being nearly bedridden for 6 weeks preop, and then immediately on a treadmill 10 days after surgery, my body was certainly thrown for a loop. It's been a long road to get any sort of muscle tone back. Taking a handful of pills every morning and night is no fun either, but if that's all I can complain about,  I'd say I'm doin just fine! Being able to actively participate in my family and friends' lives again has been nothing less than amazing. I'm pretty much back to "normal" (haha relatively speaking) and able to play with the kids, take care of my family, run up and down stairs (sounds mundane to you, but it was something I couldn't dream of doing for the last 2 years!) 

I'm very proud to say I have  finished three 5ks. I'm pretty sure i'll never set any blazing records, but I'm hoping to someday actually have a decent time.  For now I'm over the moon with the progress I've made. 

Everyday I'm just so thankful for God's faithfulness to me for delivering me through a trial that just 5 years ago we never could have even imagined would happen. It will always bring tears to my eyes to look back and see how miracle upon miracle happened in my transplant process and I just can't call that luck. God's grace and mercy certainly did shine on me.

I'm so grateful for the awesome family and friends that we have. It's an amazing thing to see a community of people- from my friends, to the church, the kids' school, the fire department, and even complete strangers pulling together not only for me but for Steve and the kids, too. From calls, texts, visits, prayers, food, facebook messages, donations and gifts-even though I was hundreds of miles from home I never felt alone. Steve definitely got to deal with the "worse" part of "for better or for worse" and I can't even imagine going through that without him. His strength and encouragement when I was ready to give up was what got me through many of those preop days. 

He and Jolie really kept the kids life as "normal" as possible and I'm so thankful for both of them and the sacrifices they made to be with me or the kids at all times. 

Lastly, I'm eternally grateful to my donor and family who made the decision to donate organs in what was probably one the most horrible moments of their life. I absolutely do think about my donor on a daily basis. People often ask if my lungs feels different or if breathing feels different. It's not at all. It's like a Cinderella story actually (ha-minus the princess part)  A perfect fit! The only difference is in my head- I very consciously do think of my donor every day, every time I take a walk, do something fun, celebrate my kids' birthdays, look at the ocean, swim in the pool... EVERYTHING makes me think of him. (for the record I don't know if its a him, but I've always had a feeling) Days that I don't feel like working out, days that I wanna sleep til noon - those are the days that I make myself get up and move. They can't. But I can. And I will! 

Making the decision to donate your (child, spouse, mother, etc)  organs when you're facing the imminent loss of a loved one is so brave and selfless and I'm so thankful for them. So while I celebrate this day- a whole new year that I'm living and breathing, remember someone is remembering this day, too and probably grieving. Please say a prayer for that family, too. For without them I'd not be here either. 

So anyway, I will continue to be thankful for every breath and every moment. So take a big deep breath with me and celebrate every day. Life is so amazing and breathing is beautiful! 

Sent from my iPhone

Happy New Year!

It has certainly been a while since I last posted. I am happy to say it's because I am home! I have been busy unpacking and getting ready for Christmas and just enjoying my family. It's been a long time since I first left home and I can't describe how good it is to be home again.

I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. Most of you know the details but I'll give you a quick rundown of life since the transplant.I was discharged from the Cleveland Clinic on November 19th. 9DAYS after I had my surgery.  My post op course was pretty easy.  One slight speed bump is that I had a pretty traumatic intubation which damaged a vocal cord.  So I had Botox injected into my paralyzed cord. (I tried to get him to do my eyes and forehead too...but no dice) My voice still isn't 100% the same, but it's not really a problem. The pain has really never been too intense.  In fact, I still think it was harder to move around after my C-sections. It has lingered a bit longer then the c-section pain, but I guess until my sternum is totally healed I'll feel it every time I cough, sneeze, hiccup, etc.  My incision is about 6' long right down the center of my chest.  I wouldn't think twice about posting a picture but I forget not everyone is a nurse or fireman and that ugly scar is probably not family friendly reading. haha

After my discharge from the hospital I moved into an apartment in Westlake. My Dr wanted me to stay in the Cleveland area for about 4 weeks. I had a home health nurse and physical therapist come by a few times to check in and had appointments about once a week at the clinic. Steve spent most of this time at home during the week managing the kids and working, and my family and friends graciously took time away from their own families and took time off of work to come and stay with me because I wasn't allowed to be alone. So Jolie, Amie, Carrie, Deborah, my parents, Billy and Teri carting our kids up to us...I know that THANK YOU will never be enough, but I hope you all know how your sacrifice to help me and my family was so appreciated and I don't know what we would have done without you. It an amazing feeling to know that I have such an amazing support system in place without ever even having to ask, they just kinda dropped everything on a few days notice and showed up. It was amazing and I'll be forever grateful. It definitely changed my perspective on the true meaning of loving your friends. God obviously put these people in my life for a reason and I'm very thankful for that.

I had a few (routine) bronchoscopies- one at 3 weeks and one at 5 weeks.  This is an outpatient procedure where they put me to sleep and stick a camera down into my lungs to check the anastamosis sites (where the new lungs are sewn to my own bronchi) and also take a few biopsies. Both showed no rejection or infection so after about 5 weeks I was released from Cleveland's snowy grip and I got to come home. My goal was to be home for Christmas, and I made it home on December 19th.

Literally on our way back into town we were greeted by the Fire Department where Steve is the Chief in the front of the firehouse with all the trucks pulled out with the lights on and a few trucks and personnel from the neighboring departments too. The TV news and the newspaper were both there too. I wish I would have known this.  I may have at lest attempted to put on some makeup or comb my hair, but I guess my sweats and baseball hat is the "real me" anyway.  haha
The Fire department and our local community, the kids' school, teachers, and our church have also been an amazing source of support for us. Letters, donations, phone calls, yard work, all were done with no questions asked...sometimes by total strangers. Donations from FD's across the country who all just wanted to "help a brother and his family".  I'm humbled and blessed to be a part of such a tight knit community of people just wanting to lend a hand-no questions asked, and no thank you needed. SO to those of you who got overlooked in my attempts to keep up with my thank you's- THANK YOU!!! We sincerely appreciate your support of our family.

Since I have been home I'm slowly adjusting to life with really nice new lungs that are working perfectly! I have more energy than I have had in years. I am now 7 weeks out from the transplant and other than some soreness and still getting tired pretty easily, I'm feeling great-even able to walk on the treadmill 1.5-2 miles a day.   We enjoyed Christmas with the family. The Christmas stomach bug of 2014 took a few of us out for a few days...some of us were lucky enough to have it twice...but other than that, it has been wonderful to be home. The kids are adjusting to the "iron fist'" being back in town (haha) and we are all slowly settling back in where we left off. My problem is I THINK I have more strength and endurance than I really do and I end up exhausting myself around the house or running little errands by 2:00 in the afternoon. I have to remind myself that recovery is a marathon not a sprint.

I'm slowly becoming more sociable, but with flu season in full swing and worse than ever, I'm still pretty picky about where I go and who I see.  It's not going to be back to "normal" activities  (school functions, church, parties, etc) for a while. I take medicine that keeps my immune system from attacking the new lungs because it thinks they are foreign objects that don't belong here. This, in turn makes me extra susceptible to any and all germs that come my way. So I tell myself I have all the time in the world to catch up with all of my friends and favorite restaurants. I'll get to them eventually, but right now I have to be super vigilant about protecting myself.  I  am constantly using hand sanitizer and I'm even getting used to the looks of disgust when I walk into Walgreens with a mask on. I want to yell at the staring mothers who steer their kids away from the germy lady with the mask on "I'M NOT CONTAGIOUS! YOU ARE!!! haha  (but thanks anyway from steering your snot-bag kid in another direction!) ha

So that's about where we are. I'll go back to Cleveland next week for a couple of appointments. Hopefully everything is still A-OK and we keep on keepin' on.

Thanks again for your continued support. Your thoughts, prayers, donations, calls, texts...they all mean the world to us.  Any time I'm having a bad day, or I'm depressed about sitting here in this house all day, I can open the mail or facebook or twitter and have new messages of encouragement waiting to be read, or a package from a stranger. That's all it takes to get my head back on the right way and realize I have so much to be thankful for. I have been given such an amazing gift. A second chance, and I hope to make the best of it. I can't wait to start paying it forward.

So here's to 2015. Be thankful, and make every breath count.  I know I will! Love you all!

~Mollie