Another Year Without Her

Three ATIIIs

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

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The Clot Must Be Fought – Our Stories

So many lives….so many stories… Other survivors share:

Our Stories @ The Clot Must Be Fought

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As we celebrate love’s ‘holiday’ tomorrow, remember that it’s all an affair of the heart and blood is thicker than water….

and for some, our own lifesourcefights our very existence it supports.

We are strong!We are SURVIVORS!!! ♥

 

Go Red For Women ♥ American Heart Association

Power To End Stroke

Stop The Clot

 

I’m A Survivor!!!!

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.