Week 20 ~ Best Laid Plans

Wow, I feel like every week recently I am saying it was a hard week. I guess we are just in a hard season. This week we were struck with illness on Sunday and we were sick the entire week. Dean was hit the hardest with a fever over 103 degrees that proved very difficult to keep down. He basically slept through the first half of the week. Anne missed 1.5 days worth of dance classes and still has a cough but is mostly back to normal. If that wasn't enough, we got a call from our disabled adult son's cardiologist. Tim is a tetrology of Fallot survivor who had open heart surgery and a pacemaker implanted in infancy. Tim's echocardiogram showed that his heart's pumping ability has reduced to just 35% ejection fraction. That is considered to be in the early stages of heart failure. We haven't been in this bad a place since he was an infant, and it is a scary place to be. Furthermore, I am concerned about staying with his current cardiac practice now that there is a new problem, because they are not associated with the best hospital that our state has to offer. I think we will be moving him back to Duke Medical Center, which is a four hour drive from home. They have several cardiologists who specialize in adults with congenital birth defects. The way the medical world takes care of a repaired heart from birth defects versus a damaged heart from our lifestyle choices is very different. Most cardiologists are not trained to take care of adults who were born with congenital defects. It is a new field since the life saving surgeries for these really complicated cases are only 20 to 30 years old and there is still a relatively small pool of adult survivors.  We are praying for guidance as we try to figure out the best course of action. I do have faith that, with medicine and proper intensive medical care, we will get him back in good shape.

Highlights from the Week ~ 

We had a lovely evening with friends last Friday. The kids had lots of fun using up the rest of our Christmas Crackers and playing board games.

Anne got to use her debit card to purchase a piece of clothing. This was one of the first times using her card. It is exciting to be a working young lady and making an income. She saves 90% of it for dance classes, but gets to spend a tiny bit on shopping.

After several weeks of the kids not cooking, we finally got our act back together this week. Dean made chili and Anne made pancakes with bacon. I love to have someone else doing the cooking some nights.

Illness in our house means "Movie School". We watched Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, four of the five episodes from Pride and Prejudice and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Dean also watched four National Geographic documentaries on Africa for geography. Anne made it out to dance some days and to work both days she was assigned. They both did some reading. That was about all we were up to this week.

Blessings, Dawn