Coming this far

The other day my sister and I were talking. Her husband has been in the hospital too. He has had different medical problems, but nevertheless they are medical problems. We were mentioning to each other different things that we have had to struggle with. Some of them are similar others not so similar. It made me think of the one thing that has really hit me throughout my own trial and heart trauma with Michael. That is everyone has trials and traumas. Some are harder than others. Some are more traumatic than others. As a person who has had a traumatic trial now, I want to never, ever let anyone else feel like their trials, no matter how great or small, are less than mine. When some people ask me about how things are going, I tell them. Then I ask them how they are doing and usually they won't "really" tell me because they don't want to "burden" me with more. For me hearing about other people and their hardships, serving other people only lifts some of my burden, it makes me feel better, it makes me feel like I can go on to the next day. Even though these last 7 1/2 months have been the worst 7 1/2 months of my life so far, I'm grateful for them. The journey has made me a better person. Who knows what this has prepared me for. But I feel stronger. My parents taught me something when I was growing up and I found it in a quote I saw the other day, "One of the hardest decisions you'll ever face in life is choosing whether to walk away or try harder." I struggled a lot growing up. My learning disability made things so difficult for me. There were so many times that I could've easily walked away but my parents never let me. I'm so grateful they were persistent.I can see that it only made me a better person and a better mom. I wanted to walk away so many times when Michael was in ICU, I couldn't take another day watching him suffer. But I would keep coming knowing that I couldn't live with myself if I did. I would lay next to him and pray as hard as I could for him to live to see the next day. And he would. I remember when he flatlined the second time. I ran into the hospital saying over and over to myself, he's not dead, he's not. And sure enough he wasn't. I stayed next to his side the whole night and I knew in my heart if he wasn't going to give up, neither was I. And sure enough he's still here. We were blessed with a second chance and I will live every day being grateful for that. I will continue to teach my boys that no matter how hard life gets you can never, ever walk away, you can only try harder. And if you do, you will be blessed for it. On a side note: Yesterday my mom lost a dear friend to her. It was sudden, unexpected. It was her time. The loss is really big to my mom and her friends. Her dear friend was an amazing person. She was fun, she was spunky, she was thoughtful, loving, kind, and funny, oh she was funny. My heart aches for them all. I will miss Wanda too. Life is just too short. Remember to enjoy every moment of it. The pictures below are: the first one is a week after Michael's first surgery, he was showing his pretty scar to his sister. He flatlined a few hours later. The second picture is from March 19th, I took him to the ER. His blood pressure was really low and he was experiencing weird symptoms. The third picture was at the end of medical ICU, he was emaciated and couldn't talk very well because he still had his trach in, but I was happy he was alive.