I realize it has been a couple months since I last posted. We have been busy going on two vacations (hooray!), recovering from vacations and getting sick. I can be guilty of making “Perfect the enemy of good”, maybe not perfect, but at least “great” and that makes me slow to post because I want a well thought out post and to share some great pictures of Hana on vacation because I know how much people want to see them (and they are pretty awesome, if I say so myself).
In this post I am not going to tell you about our vacation or how we all got RSV and Hana spent two nights in the hospital. I will share that in the next few days (I promise). In this post I want to share the letter I wrote for the Gallery of Gratitude for the new children’s hospital that is almost completed at Stanford. They requested anyone who wished, to submit letters, notes, pictures or art work expressing their gratitude. Gratitude for the hospital and its staff is something I feel every single day but I hadn’t given it the time to really express it other than out loud at home. It was really rewarding putting it down in words, especially with the thought that someone who I am expressing gratitude for might actually read it. I came to learn later that the letter was passed around, to whom I don’t know, but when we ran into Hana’s primary transplant cardiologist he thanked me for writing it. Of course, I didn’t know what he was talking about at first because I think my brain is just a little too busy and a lot too tired.
So, now I will share with all of you the letter, just in case you might want to read it too:
Every day I say, out loud, “Thank you for another day with Hana.” Often, its just a whisper at bedtime, as Hana is wrapping her 3-year old arms around me and saying, “I love you mama.” Every single day I am so grateful that Hana got to see this day, another day, another chance. At six-months old we thought we might lose her when we got the shock of our lives with her sudden diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy and severe heart failure. But she was treated at your hospital for three weeks and we miraculously got to go home with talk about an eventual heart transplant. I remember bending over her in the CVICU sending out whispered “thank yous” to everyone I could think of, the life flight team, the doctors, the nurses, the nurse practitioners, the social worker and child life specialist, the pharmacists, case managers, the woman who spontaneously grabbed me a stack of napkins in the cafeteria when I started crying uncontrollably from all the stress and shock and emotion.
At 15-months, Hana’s left lung collapsed and we were back in the hospital, this time for an unknown amount of time, while Hana was placed on the Berlin Heart to help her heart pump blood until a donor heart became available. It ended up being seven months while your hospital became our home where we slept, ate, and raised our only child.
After Hana got her donor heart and was recovering, she was in a funk. She really didn’t want to sit up or walk around or play, she just seemed in a very down mood. We were warned that this often happens to patients after their heart transplant. Her nurse, Jay, thought it would be good to take her on a wagon ride to see the fountain outside of the Stanford adult hospital next door. Hana had never seen it before, despite being in the hospital for so long, as she was never able to travel that far while attached to the Berlin Heart.
When Hana got outside and she saw that fountain she started climbing out of the wagon! Then, she started walking for the first time in almost two weeks! Then, it dawned on her that she was walking, for the very first time, unattached to the six foot drive line that had connected her to the 200-pound Berlin Heart. That’s when she started a very wobbly RUN around the perimeter of the fountain. Finally, she was free. Finally, she had gotten her second chance at life.
Although she still didn’t appear joyful or happy, somehow the gravity of this moment was beyond that. It was the earnestness in her steps, the resolve in her chosen path, and the determination on her face that were so compelling. The rawness of her condition – so soon after open heart surgery, and the innocence of her age – just under two-years old, uplifted all of us who witnessed this and brought tears to our eyes (including Jay).
Thank you, all of you, all of the hundreds of people that make this moment possible and all the other moments that follow it. I know its more than just the hours of face-time with medical staff, its the hours of work from people behind the scenes and the hours of research and study and thought and its all brought to us with compassionate hearts and caring minds. Thank you for another day with Hana.
Hana's Heart 