SPRINGFIELD, MO – Downtown Springfield is a little more colorful today. Known as the happiest 5k in the world, the travel Springfield, and the citizens responded by coming out in the thousands. With a message of healthy living, happiness, and giving back to the community, the Color Run is taking the nation, and whole world by storm. In the span of 15 months, the race has grown to be featured in over 60 cities and having over 600,000 participants. Un-timed and not caring about how fast you run, this 5k is a family-friendly outing to remember.
Well……at least I have proof that I was actually going to participate….It arrived this week from my sister….
AND I get to wear this really cool bracelet that reminds me WHY I didn’t get to run in the first place….as you ALWAYS have to learn to walk before you can run…..
As I am sitting here going over the posts, stats, and comments of this blog over the past week, I am not only flattered and touched, but inspired again.
In sharing my son’s story, it was quite the decision. There were many things to consider. The first being in how would he respond. The second was would anyone be interested. On both, I was proven incorrect.
My son did respond, but not exactly the
way I expected. It was a totally positive one. I had expected to defend, in some degree, my reasons about why I had. I was prepared to do just this on receiving his first call after posting. I had everything ready. None of it was needed. For that, I say thank you ♡.
As for my second concern, I must honestly and wholeheartedly say I’m flabbergasted and sincerely flattered!!!
For these posts to not only be a series and so personal, yet posted during the middle of the week, I am amazed and humbled by what the stats have proven it to be an unfounded and near grossly ridiculous.
I would be terribly remiss in not thanking you – the reader – in taking your time which there is so little of in our busy hectic day-to-day schedules for reading and taking this journey. It is because of you that I share. Support and understanding during a difficult, life changing experience is all anyone can ask for and on receiving it, a great relief. There are no masks here. This is real. This is life. Thank you.
When I was a child, I never questioned that my Mom would be there for me when I needed her. When I was hurt, she’d make it better. When I was happy, she’d listen and join in with my giggles, and when I was sick, she’d nurse me back to health. The hours I spent with my head in her lap, her stroking my hair as I lay on the church pew while Dad preached were times I felt special. She knew exactly the precise touch that let her fingers slide effortlessly through my long hair and trailed her fingers lightly down my back. If someone would’ve told me then that as a 43year-old woman, I would literally cry and yearn for her, I would’ve thought you crazy.
Yet, here on the Eve of 14th anniversary of my Mom’s passing, that is where my thoughts are. As the years have passed, and I lose the little memories of the everyday things about her, I’ve come to realize what my special memories are and what made her special to me.
It really came early, fast, and hard these thoughts and memories of her. I’ve missed her and yearned for her so badly over the last two and a half month’s that I’ve cried…wait no….wept for her. This last clotting experience has hit me hard both physically and mentally. Like the child I was….’I want my Mommy!’
See, it’s not just because of being sick or because I’m being childish that I want her, its because of her strength, her courage, her knowledge, and her experience of dealing with and living daily with this disease. I want someone who understands the mental and physical aspects of this better than I do. I want to let her know that I now get why we never saw her cry, be frustrated, and just be plain angry at the blood disorder ‘that shall not be ‘named’ and that I so do it too. But I would also ask who was with you when you’d been so strong for quite sometime, but had that occasion day where everything hurt and your brain was tired and your legs wouldn’t cooperate and all you wanted to scream ’WHY?WHY ME???’ When the doctors themselves were clueless as there was no information wide spread at that time. Who was there for you besides Dad? What did you tell Dad as he hovered around concerned and worried that would put his mind at ease and that everything was fine, even if it wasn’t just because you didn’t want to see him that way? Why did you wait so long? To the point that Dad literally had to carry you to the car to get you to the ER as you had no strength of your own.
Then I’d have to thank you for the last lesson you taught me…not to do what you did by shaking it off and not getting it checked out earlier when everything was available to you. You worked for a physician, your husband was the hospital chaplain, and your youngest daughter worked in the hospital laboratory. Everything was available and less than 10 miles away.
Because of what you didn’t do, I did the exact opposite. Yes, I knew I had bilateral DVTs, and that they wouldn’t show up in an ultrasound just then, but never dreamed I had also thrown a saddle clot. The similarities in our instances has not gone unnoticed to me. Yet, I’m still here. I’m still trying to come to grips with it. I made it through….next time…no guarantees.
So, yes, this 43 year-old woman is missing her mother in a very bad way this evening, but am reliving memories of singing in the car, taking you to lunch once a week as my treat just so I could have you to myself. Christmas spent sleeping around the tree as you couldn’t take the stairs, just to name a few. We definitely had moments where we didn’t like each other much, but we still loved each other and that’s all that really matters in the end.
I love you and I miss you! ♡♥
Saw the video of this little girl during a rough day last week and though of you. Which brought me brief happiness between the two.. ッ
So many people knew and loved Mrs. A, General Judi, Judi, Mom…and so many other titles. Let’s celebrate her by sharing memories, anecdotes, reflections, etc with each other and passing them on
Blood thinners??? FOR LIFE??? I was only 19, had just given birth to my son, was experiencing my first DVT (arterial no less), and was trying to come to terms with the fact that I was going to be just like my Mom! She had suffered with numerous DVTs (at least one year) from the time I was 5 years old. I was aware of what was in store for me. There wasn’t a medical diagnosis for whatever this blood disorder was, I knew what the treatment was….RAT POISON…COUMADIN!!! I had seen what that entailed. Doctors office visits for regular INRs, changes in doseages consistently, and the bleed outs and bruising. I didn’t want anything to do with it! Then 20÷ years later, I threw yet another DVT while therapeutic. New doctor, new technology, new medication…Lovenox. I took this for a year religiously while suffering consistent sidhe effects of nausea and hair loss. Then another new medication….Arixtra. what a wonderful change. No more side effects! Instead, again while within treatment guidelines, I threw the worst and most clots ever. A pulmonary embolism saddle clot along with bilateral lower extremity DVTs. Currently I am on Xeralto, another new medication on the market, and although its only been a month, it seems to be doing its job…I hope. Here is a very good article from one of my favorite resource sites regarding living with blood thinners. What blood thinners are you on? Are you suffering from side effects? Do you get frustrated
I’m a runner, writer, dog-mom, and self-proclaimed hot sauce connoisseur.
I’m also a survivor raising awareness daily about the devestating effects of blood clots.
Words To Run By
My story is not that different than anyone else. I graduated from college, started my first real job as a child welfare caseworker – a field completely unrelated to my degree, of course. I got married on 07/07/07 and we adopted two dogs – Grace and Sadie. Back then, I would have told you I lived a great life, until I discovered – and not without a whole lot of things going really wrong first – that there is more to life and more to me. I wanted more, I needed more, but I had no idea where or with what to start. Continue reading →
My current battle with my genetic clotting disorder..I survived!!!
Christmas Day 2012:
Just barely three weeks ago…I cheated death by surviving the coroner’s ‘bread and butter’. I threw a saddle clot which stopped my heart for an unknown amount of time…but merely seconds on a clock. This disease/disorder/deficiency will eventually kill me unless human accident gets me first. I’m trying to find others to gather with me in searching for more answers to many unknown questions and alternative preventative treatments. If not a cure in my lifetime, than a cure for my son and his unborn children….Please help me in the fight against this silent killer
Post PE precautions where in order ESPECIALLY when the Orkin man showed up for his monthly visits at my work facility…
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This is my original story:
I am 2nd generation ATIII Congenital having my first DVT/VTE at age 19 which wasn’t diagnosed immediately as I was pregnant at the time. It wasn’t until after the delivery of my son and only after the insistent urging of my mother, that the possibility of my having this at that age was grudgingly given in too and after a very painful venogram, was finally diagnosed and was not just venous, but arterial. Why was my mother so insistent about what it was? It was because she had lived with recurring DVT/VTE’s for over half her life with her first being diagnosed directly after having given birth to me. My mother was the first generation, having skipped a generation through my grandfather. My sister is also an active ATIII Congenital. As of two weeks ago, I thought the only worry or concern I would have would be that any future granddaughters of mine would someday become active through my son, as in the years that I have researched ATIII the most common and recurring thread is that, usually, men are carriers not actively diagnosed. That has all now changed as of June 6, 2011 when my 22 year-old son was rushed to the emergency room for the third time in just as many days. He, once again, had a CT scan done of his head which revealed something perplexing to the physicians. The doctors were stumped until I arrived at the hospital where he had been taken and told them about our family genetic disorder. The final diagnosis was cerebral sinus venous thrombosis and accompanying brain bleed concurrent with stroke and seizures secondary to ATIII Congenital. He too has now been tested and diagnosed with ATIII Congenital.
Художник Андрей Крайнов и Кº - это творческая группа профессиональных белгородских художников, создающая произведения искусства на любой вкус и со вкусом. Мы можем выполнить для вас живописные полотна с пейзажами, портретами, натюрмортами, а также настенные фрески с барельефами и разные стилистические элементы оформления интерьера, вплоть до скульптуры, настенной декоративной фактуры и художественной мозаики. Тел.: +7 903-642-70-70
Living ~ Not Just Surviving 