This Changes Things...

A while back I gave a short summary of what was going on in our lives, which included a scary visit we had with my cardiologist. Since that date, we decided it would be best to get a second opinion just to try to get a better idea about how my heart is doing and how pregnancy will affect the function of my heart.

NOTE- I am not pregnant. I am not planning on being pregnant soon. But I am living proof that things happen when you are certainly not planning on them.

After we decided to get a second opinion, then came the daunting task of trying to decide who I would even see. The problem is I can't go to a normal cardiologist. I tried that. They mostly know about heart failure, mainly older adults who's hearts have worn out. They aren't trained to know about congenital heart defects, and even more specifically in young adults. We have to find an adult congenital heart specialists who focused on issues with the valve.

I'm amazed that we even worried about how we would find someone. My favorite verse is Psalms 37:23 - The Lord directs the steps of the godly, He delights in every detail of their lives. I was in an admission session when I noticed that the mother had a scar on her chest. Having a scar here is very normal in my eyes, and it always takes a few moments for it to trigger that it is not every day I see one on others. I was bold and asked her about it, and through the course of our conversation found out she had a cardiology specialist at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Her son, a senior, was gracious to spend a good portion of his admission session letting us talk about surgeries and the praises she had for this hospital. After I made it home that day and was telling my mom about the situation, she was floored that at the same moment I was in the admission session, she and Bami (my grandmother if you're new around here) were talking about the Cleveland Clinic and all of the positive things they heard about it.

This spurred us on to pursue an appointment with the Cleveland Clinic. Interestingly enough, the doctor I will see up there is actually from San Antonio. I always love workin' with a Texan.

So, on December 6, my mom and I will fly out to Cleveland and spend a few days there meeting with the doctor and surgeons. We are telling ourselves that the scheduled appointment with the surgeon is just a precaution; it's easier to cancel that appointment than try to schedule it the day I'm there. Our flights, hotel and rental car are reserved and waiting for us to head out.

When we received the news from my cardiologist back in September that I would need surgery again, the questions we were thinking focused around when, where, who's the doctor, what would they do, etc. There was never once a moment that we stopped and said "No, we can't. It's too expensive." Expense was lingering in the back of our minds, yet it would never be a determining factor in whether or not I got the surgery.

Take a few minutes to watch this video. It is a little graphic, so if you have a queasy stomach look away in those parts. If the video doesn't load all the way through, you can go here to see it.

A PEAK BEHIND THE SCENES INTO MOHAMMAD STAR’S SURGERY from Preemptive Love on Vimeo.

My heart felt so heavy during as I watched the video unfold. I was first crying for the opportunity at life Mohammad was receiving, and yet broken by how I take my own opportunities and privileges for granted. I am so blessed in that I truly cannot fathom not being able to have a surgery if Cody and I couldn't afford it. I know that someone would step in if it was a matter of my life. I will blog another time about the convictions I've felt about spending as we enter this holiday season. If you're someone in my family who might be looking to buy me a gift or if you want to make a difference with your money, then consider donating $25 to help provide a life-changing heart surgery. I will put my money where my mouth is, so family members, act surprised!

I actually have a friend that was in my sorority who is spending 6 months in Iraq working with this organization. You can check out her blog here: http://ashleyerin.wordpress.com/
or the Preemetive Love's blog here: http://preemptivelove.org/blog/

Vulnerability.

Community.

It's becoming quite the hot topic among church these days. Most churches offer some time of life group, small group, home team or something of the likes to provide a space for people to feel connected with others. The interesting thing about community is that even though churches offer a lot of opportunities for community to happen, it will not develop with out vulnerability.

Community is a result of vulnerability.

Vulnerability changes things. It deepens a relationship. It can soften or harden people. It takes its toll on people. Vulnerability is a choice. And is it not always an easy or clear choice to make.

I've struggled with vulnerability lately. I want to be vulnerable with my friends and the people close to me. The problem with vulnerability is that it requires you to honest about your life. Currently the majority of my life revolves around three things: marriage, work and school. With some questions, its easy to be vulnerable and truthful: How's marriage? Wonderful! So much fun, we're loving the house! With other questions, you can still be vulnerable and truthful, even when its not that fun of an answer: How's school going? Eh. It's going. Only five weeks left and then one semester and I'm finished!

Finally, there are some questions that are just hard to be vulnerable and truthful: How's work going?

Humph. What to say? Do you choose to fudge (a whole lot) on the truth? Or are you honest about it and look ungrateful?

Well today on my blog, I'm being vulnerable, truthful and want to share my heart. I'm not sure that many people outside of close friends and family read this, but I want to share this so that you know what I'm going through, how to pray for me, and how to hold me accountable.

The only way to answer the question is that work is hard. Down right, wear you out, feelin' the pressure and stress, HARD.

If you've been living under a rock then you might have missed the fact that we're in an economic crisis. Part of that crisis meant that people couldn't afford to attend a private school. So as a recruiting team, we did not meet the number goal that HSU needed to meet budget. As much as I would like to blame the lack of goal on the economy, the fact of the matter is that we didn't meet our requirements and the school is hurting because of it.

So now the recruiting team is being watched. Very closely. And I have to admit, it's no fun being watched. Since I'm being honest hear, most of the time my gut just wants to react. It's easier to speak off the cuff rather than obey. The fact of the matter is that I should just simply obey because of the authority the people setting the rules over me have. That can be a hard pill to swallow, but I'm choosing to obey because I want to be seen as obedient.

I've been praying for the Lord to change my attitude and to raise me up as a leader. Wouldn't you know, when you pray a prayer like that, the Lord will certainly give you several opportunities to succeed. Or fail, in my case.

So if you see me anytime soon and ask a me a question, know that you will receive an honest answer. I hope that in my answer, you will see my heart in the matter. Even though the situation is gut-wrenching, drag you down, drain all you energy, hard, I am so thankful for the job I have. I still want to learn from the situation, to serve the school I love, and to grow in the process.

I'm not quite sure how to wrap this up, but as I take a step back into this blog world I knew that I could not blog again with first starting with vulnerability.

As you start another week, both in the real world and the blog one, I hope that you will seize the opportunity to be vulnerable with those around you.

flashback

I found this picture on my desktop:

This was taken in August of 2006, before we officially started dating.

This was taken on our anniversary trip July 2009.

We've come a long way.

anyone out there?

I realized this week as I waited very impatiently for a blog I follow to update that there are most likely people out there who are chopping at the bone for me to update.

I actually know that that is a lie. And no one is waiting on egg shells to find out what is going on in our lives, but one of these days I'm going to get back into the habit of blogging more frequently. And hopefully that day will be sometime soon.

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Today has been a unbelievably productive day. Especially for me. And a Saturday. Or a weekend for that matter. While it was probably the least fun activity for a Friday night, Cody had a huge paper to write so I cleaned the bathrooms and organized the closet. Definitely not something I would normally do on a Friday night, but it sure felt good to get a jump start on getting the house back together.

This morning was spent doing laundry, dusting, and grocery shopping. All daily, mundane activities, but it felt so good to have time for normal activities after a few months of traveling. Last week finished up my portion of travel season, so I am thankful that I will be staying in the big city of Abilene for a while. Perfect timing too. There's only 5 weeks left in the semester, which means its crunch time for grad students. Cody has about 14 papers due within the next 12 days. Horrible. We're trying to slowly keep chugging and make it through the next couple of weeks and hopefully come out with good grades too!

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We ended October with a bang, as my older brother Nathan proposed to his girlfriend Kaitlan. It will take a whole post to explain the great detail he put into the proposal. They set a date this past week and will be getting married July 10, which in only 5 days after the best wedding date I know :) I don't know if its going to help my parents remember our wedding dates or just confuse them because they're so close! Either way, I am super excited to gain another great sister in law! She's looking at plum and mustard gold for wedding colors which I know will turn out beautiful!

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Have yall been watching The Biggest Loser? Oh my. I'm not sure I can take any more emotional episodes. I am getting some great spiritual material out of this season. Next time I preach be prepared for a Biggest Loser clip!

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That's about all I know for now. I'm ready to veg out in front of the tv. To jump back into my day, after the laundry, dusting, and grocery shopping, I cleaned the kitchen, baked a cake, painted 2 pieces of very *detailed* furniture, made taco soup and the best corn bread ever, and then had to clean the kitchen up again. Whew. I am tired! I'm off to reward myself by looking at craft blogs and getting ready for SNL! Have a great Sunday!

Where to start?

I feel as if we have everything and nothing to catch you up on. Since August 21, our lives have consisted of trying to balance work, school work, unpacking and working on the house. There's a slight part of me that feels guilty that we've been here for a month and a half and things still aren't quite put together, but I know we have more on our plates than most people do right when they move. So we've already made two huge notes to self: paint before you move in and do not move in the weekend before school starts. Oh well... live and learn!

Here's a sample of what we've done:

When we moved in, everything in the house was a lovely shade of white. I can't find the exact same angle, but this will show you the dramatic change:


It's green! It's definitely not a color that everyone would want in their house, but we love it! We have lots of black furniture and curtains to help calm it down too. I'll post more pictures after we have it fully decorated.

Somewhere in the midst of all the painting and unpacking we also took a few minutes to celebrate my 25th birthday. This was the first year since my junior year of high school that I was actually with my parents on my birthday, so it was fun to get to relive the memories with them.

In more serious news, we did have quite a scare at the beginning of September. My mom and I went to Dallas for what I assumed was going to be another routine cardiologist check up. This year was the year that everything wasn't routine. When they take an echo of my heart, it typically takes 15 to 20 minutes tops. This year the echo took about an hour, and my cardiologist came in to take a few of the images herself. The time length and that she came in were huge red flags for us. When she came in to discuss how my heart was looking, she was very concerned that my right ventricle is 2 to 2 1/2 times larger than what it should be. This was only my second time to see her and they did not have an echo to go off of from last year, so we had to do an MRI again to see how the size of my heart truly compares to last year. The cardiologist was concerned because in women who have repaired tetralogy of fallot, their hearts enlarge during pregnancy. Because pregnancy is more of a possibility now than it has even been before, she felt like another surgery to replace my valve might be needed soon before we have children.

We did an MRI that day so that she could have a better idea of the size of my heart, and then we waited for three long days before we heard from her with the results. Mind you, all three days we were preparing for a December open heart surgery. When she finally called, she said that the MRI revealed that yes, my right ventricle was 2 1/2 times the size of a normal one, but that it was actually the same size as last year and that she talked to another doctor and that I wouldn't actually need another surgery before I got pregnant. (Note: this is all a very condensed version of this story!)

While we were excited to hear that I wouldn't need the surgery, we're still very leery of the 180 degrees difference from when we first met with her to the end of the week. Right now we are looking to get a second opinion from a major heart clinic here in the US so that we can be sure of what needs to happen with my heart before Cody and I start having kids.

This is definitely the most scattered and random blog post that I have made, but any type of blog post was long overdue and this somewhat catches you up on what's going on in our lives. Travel season for work is close to being finished for me, so I will try to pick up my blogging after that. Stay tuned tomorrow... I just got a new hair and I know you want to see the changes!

DIY Mantle

It's been a few weeks since the majority of the transformation on our new house took place, but I wanted to share one of the projects from our new house for A Soft Place to Land's DIY Day.


Back at the beginning of August, my mom found a new store where the majority of my paycheck will now be going to. If you love DIY-projects, you need to see if your town has a ReStore. ReStore is full of anything you will find in a house - as contractors gut and renovate homes, they will take the old stuff to ReStore to sell. All of the proceeds go to help the Habitat for Humanity. So you get some quailty stuff to update your home, and it helps out a good cause!


*Disclaimer* The pictures are being weird. Sorry about that!!

This is the mantle that my found. It was $25. People, this is SOLID, QUALITY wood. Definitely worth more than $25. I saw on the ReStore website that they typically sell stuff 75% off retail price!







So I started with the mantle, and then took my friend, Sandpaper Block, to even out some off the knicks on it.














Just wanted to give you a close up of the details!










After smoothing it out and cleaning the dust off, we set out to paint it our favorite color of furniture: BLACK. Kills my dad that with every piece of nice wood furniture my mom gets, the first words out of her mouth are, "Isn't this going beautiful when I paint it black?" He always protests to begin with, yet comes around in the end!! ((excuse the extra concentrated face I'm making!))





Then you grab you handy helpers and have them attach wood to the brick wall, making sure it is level. I will brag on Cody and my dad right now. They eye-balled where the wood needed to go and when we checked it with the level, it was PERFECT!

















Secure it to make sure it won't fall once decorations are up...












Here was the brick wall before...

and viola!!

You'll have to excuse the mess around the fireplace. Those have finally been unpacked, but were replaced with others! Some day the house will be put together!

Come back next week to see more affordable projects thanks to ReStore!

Trusting

Psalm 116:1-9

¹ I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.

² Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.

³ The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.

⁴ Then I called on the name of the LORD :
"O LORD, save me!"

⁵ The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.

⁶ The LORD protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.

⁷ Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.

⁸ For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,

⁹ that I may walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.