Hey! In honor of the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic tonight, I'm going to share an Olympic story with you. Yea!!
Didja know that Mike ran with the Olympic Torch?
Back in 2001 I nominated Mike to be a Torch Bearer for the 2002 SLC Winter Olympics and he was selected! He was technically a Support Runner for the Olympic Torch Relay but that was just as exciting! We lived in Denver at the time and Mike's portion of the Relay was in Leadville, CO (with an altitude of over 10,000 feet!).
As a Support Runner, Mike ran along side three Torch Bearers and if at any time they had difficulties or for some reason couldn't carry the torch, he would carry the torch in their stead. The third runner Mike was paired with passed the Olympic Torch to him for the portion of the run where I was on the side of the road, cheering my fool head off! You guys, it was so cool! I was and am still so proud of Mike!
I was really touched by Ashley's post about being contentedly flawed. I've been reflecting since I read her post and watched this video.
I have a big, scarred, scary-looking belly. I've been thinking about it quite a bit in the past few months too. I've not talked about it before, but November marked the 10th anniversary of my near death experience.
I've been wanting to share just because I thought it would be cathartic to tell my story. There is so much and I don't know what to tell and what to leave out. On top of that, in the 9 weeks I was in the hospital I was out of it a good deal of the time so I'm not even certain of the time line of all the events. Here's the briefest synopsis I can give.
Not to be dramatic, but I did almost die. I had a portal vein thrombosis. After being hospitalized and put on heparin for about a week, I had some invasive procedures to break up the clot (to no avail). The procedures included injecting a solution directly in and around the clot in my liver. Turns out I have a heparin allergy and instead of breaking up my clot, the heparin was creating more and more clots. My liver was punctured during the procedures and long story a bit shorter, I ended up bleeding out into my abdominal cavity. Cue the dun-dun-duhhhhnnnn sound effects.
Mike and Michelle were in the room when I coded.
CPR started, I was intubated, my parents (in the waiting room) were notified for consent, and I was whisked off for emergency surgery. Careful, cosmetic-surgery-like cuts were not a consideration. It was a crude cut meant to get in fast so the surgeons could to find the problem and hopefully save my life. *Spoiler Alert: They saved my life.
The scar is not pretty. It spans from my sternum to down past my belly button. The scar tissue inside is so dense that my abdomen is really hard from the calcification. It makes my belly look like I am pregnant (which is so ironic since that won't ever happen). I've learned to get over it. I'm working on embracing it. After watching the video about being flawed, I wanted to stand up and show off my scar too. When I looked at all the pictures I took, I thought my belly looked like an upside-down heart. Maybe that's a sign that I should just love it and everything it represents.
Nate has a newly developed obsession of apples or App-ohs, if you ask him. We had some out the other day since I making apple crisp. Mmmm...
The child went nuts over them. You'd think I'd never tried to get him to eat them before. I helped him eat one then he was ready for #2. He was also wearing his cool new Marvel Comics shirt that I scored on clearance at Target for $1.74.
"What's with all the pictures, Mom? It's an app-oh for God's sake."
How cute are these boots? Nate was marching around the house, breaking them in for Blizzard 2010 the next day.
