Two Years Ago

Two years ago today. 
It was the hardest and most terrifying day of my life. 
As well as the happiest. 
I don't believe I have ever felt so much fear and relief all at the same time, let alone on the same day. 
A miracle happened, and I am thankful every single day for that miracle and the talented hands of my hero Dr. Starnes for performing that miracle to be able to keep my Tanner. ♥

Today, it is as if all of this never happened.
Tanner is a normal, happy and healthy little boy.

The only reminders we have are the memories and his faint scars.
These reminders I will always treasure.

Miss Me?

Since there isn't so much going on with Tanner's heart at the moment, I have only been updating our family blog.

There is always a TON going on in the Heart World (which I am always following and praying about). Things are just peachy with Tanner's particular heart. I am also just too lazy to try to keep up on two blogs.

So please come over and visit us! 

HERE

I look forward to knowing you've been there. So leave me some love. I adore comments. :)

Sweet Mia

This heart world that we are in can be full of miracles. I live with one.

It can also have many tragedies. 

Mia and her mother Mimi are some of our sweet heart friends. Both of them were born with the same heart defect. Mia required a complete heart transplant. At 4 months old she received this ultimate gift from a sweet angel named Jacob.

She is now 4 and has been doing so well.

Recently she was granted a wish by the Make-A-Wish Foundation to meet her idol, Minnie Mouse. Mia and her family were granted a trip to Florida to go to Disney World so she could finally meet Minnie.

Mia had been a little under the weather a few days before they left, and everyone was assuming it was just a cold. When they got to Florida she had gotten much worse and was hospitalized in Orlando thinking it was pneumonia. After an echo it was found that she was in rejection (her body was rejecting the transplanted heart) and her heart was functioning at 40%.

They took her in to do a biopsy of her heart and during this procedure her beautiful little heart stopped. She was put on ECMO (life support) and was transported to the All Children's Hospital in Tampa to their transplant team.

After a few days they were hoping that she would open her eyes and show brain activity. This devistatingly didn't happen. She had been deprived of oxygen for too long.

The doctors told her family that there was no hope and nothing that could be done. Her family was forced to say good-bye and they decided to take her off of life support on October 8, 2012.

She never got to meet Minnie.

I always knew that being in this heart world I would eventually be going to children's funerals. Children who are friends with Tanner. But I never expected to be attending Mia's funeral. 

Not this way.

She was doing so well! She was such a strong and spunky little thing. Her cardiologists were happy with how she was doing. It is so scary on how fast this happened. It has reminded all of us how fragile our heart babies really are.

My heart is breaking for Mimi, John and her brothers and sister. 

On the day her family released Mia back home to Heavenly Father we all wore red and release balloons in her and Jacob's honor.

We did 4 red balloons. 1 for each "extra" year that she was given because of organ donation and the compassionate decision that Jacob's family made. As well as 1 blue balloon for Jacob.

Mia will never be forgotten. 

She has touched so many lives. 

I had the privilege of meeting her at heart camp. Her laugh and her smile were contagious. You were just drawn to her perfect little spirit.

This world and our heart community now feels empty because of the loss of sweet Mia.

Heaven is now sweeter. Fly high little Miss.

Hearing Test

Last week I received a letter in the mail from the state saying that they have record that Tanner failed his newborn hearing test in his left ear.

I was already aware of this and was told that he still had a bunch of gunk in it from birth and they were going to do another one.

This was before his diagnosis of his heart condition.

After his surgery at CHLA, they did another hearing test and he passed. I remember it said in his discharge papers that they wanted him to come back for another hearing test.

I talked with our pediatrician about it and he said that it must have been a California state thing, and that he didn't need another one if he had already passed if we didn't want to.

So at that point I chose to let it go and never thought another thing about it until I received this letter.

Between this time I had learned that medications that Tanner was on, as well as his extended ICU stay could have caused hearing loss. So I decided to do a follow up hearing test just to see.

We already know he can hear since he talks, mimics us and freaks out at really loud sounds. I wanted to make sure he didn't have any minor hearing loss that could affect anything and be able to do what we needed to do as early as possible to help him. And also for peace of mind.

We went and had his hearing test today.

The lady had me sit in this little room with Tanner on my lap. there were different things on the walls that made sound, lit up and moved to get his attention.

At one point of the test I was getting nervous. There were sounds that alternated on the left and right that sounded like crickets and applause. They were so quiet I could barely hear them, and I could see Tanner was not responding to them at all.

Once the test was done and the lady came and let us out of the room I mentioned that some of those were so quiet! She said that she actually turned those ones down even lower than she usually does because he was doing SO well with the rest of the test. Phew!

She did a couple other test by sticking some ear buds in his ears and we were done.

She said that he did so well, that she was actually a little impressed.

She mentioned that she bet it was so nice to have boring results for once.

I couldn't agree more.

Heart Camp 2012

This weekend we went to our first Intermountain Healing Hearts Heart Camp.

I have been so excited to go to this for months!

We got there in pretty good time and started to unpack our things to set up our tent. After Kollin got the tent all laid out, he realized that there were no tent poles! You would think how OCD we are that the poles would have been with the tent.

He figured out that a while ago he had taken them out of the bag with the tent to get to something else and forgot to put them back in. Woops!

So he drove back home to pick them up and hoped he would make it back to camp before the canyon got locked.

Luckily he was able to make it back with about an hour to spare and we were able to get everything set up pretty quick after that.

Tanner even liked "helping" Daddy set up the tent.

That night we had dinner, played bingo and minute to win it, and watched a movie.

I had put Tanner down to sleep before we went to bed and he did so well and went right down. But when Kollin and I went to bed he decided it was time to wake up and play.

At first we figured to let him wander around the tent and he'd go back to sleep when he felt like it. But he started throwing anything he could get his hands on at us. I would try to snuggle him in bed with us but he would just scream and cry and I didn't want him to wake up the entire camp. Eventually I just stuck him in between us, held him down and sang "5 Little Speckled Frogs" to him about 20 times before her finally went to sleep. I tried all lullabies that I knew and he didn't want to hear any of them, but "5 Little Speckled Frogs" worked. Who'd a thunk? 

Once he was asleep, he was out for the rest of the night. It was heaven!

It had rained pretty good that night and the next morning was beautiful.

I asked some of the other tent dwellers if they heard Tanner the night before and they said they really only heard that rain. Phew!

We had breakfast and started to clean up camp. 

This boy Porter just LOVED Tanner and took him on a ride in his wagon. He loved it.

Then the parents had a symposium with a couple of people from Primary's that gave us some great information about what is going on up there.  There is a new program that is being implemented for heart babies that have very critical defects. And also we learned about some financial options that we can do to be able to help our kids with disabilities their entire lives.

They had some fun crafts for the kids over 3, so unfortunately, Tanner had to come to the symposium with us. 

He got pretty bored and decided to go on a walk with our cute little heart friend Mason. 

These little heart kids are so stinkin' cute!

On of our families also brought their puppy up there (but shhhh, no pets allowed). So she was our Heart Mascot. Her name is HEARTly. Perfect, isn't it?

She was a little nippy, but Tanner didn't seem to mind. He loved her.

We had lunch and then cleaned up everything else. 

And we took a liquorice break.

After we got everything packed in the car, Tanner was so worn out from all the fun he was out cold about 5 seconds after and the entire drive home.

It was so much fun, and I can't wait to go again!

18 Month Checkup

Today we went to Dr. Terashima and got checked out for Tanner's 18 month visit.

The appointment we very well I think. He did well with putting shapes into the right holes, stacking blocks and putting a little button thing into a bottle with a small opening.

Terashima sounded impressed when I told him about the Pringle can activity, as well as a couple others we do and that Tanner actually does them and figures them out.

We talked about starting to brush his teeth and to contact a dentist and when they would like to see him. About him talking and being around other children. He really like that I said we have gone on many heart play dates and get to be around other heart kids and that we are taking advantage of the heart group that we are in!

He received his Hep A shot today, and it is the last shot that Tanner's going to need until he is FIVE! Yay!

He is doing very well and Terashima seemed happy with everything.
He's growing, but gaining weight is slowing down a bit. Terashima didn't even mention anything about it so I'm not worried.
Weight: 20 lbs 15 oz
Length: 30 inches

18 Months Old

 Stop growing already, would ya?

 Not so much a baby anymore.