Why

I know I said that the next blog post would be about PTSD in CHDers and CHD Parents but I have to write this. Why am I still alive? What is my purpose in life? Not easy questions but ones that come up in my head sometimes.

I may not have done bad things to my body but I have coded multiple times and yet each time it happened,I came back.I don't understand why I was allowed to live and so many children have lost their battles. These musings happen more often as I have become a part of the CHD community on Facebook.I have bonded with parents and Adult CHDers.I watch some CHD parents lose their children and it makes me wonder why I was spared and why my family was spared the pain of losing me.

I know I fought hard to live but I don't think I fought any harder than these kids who are losing their lives. I know my family fought for me,but I also know that these Angel Parents fought hard for their children as well.I watch these babies and children struggle to survive and it makes me wonder why was I able to beat the odds and some kids arent?

I went through the trials of not having an appetite and getting poked and proded and having countless caths and 5 surgeries and twice yearly cardiology appointments and more.

When I was 12 I was so sick,they weren't even sure that I'd make it off the operating table after my emergency aortic valve replacement.And yet I did. I was in a medically induced coma for a month and developed a nasty pressure sore on my tailbone because I couldn't be moved without my sats dropping dramatically.When I was released from the hospital six weeks after I was admitted,I weighed 42 pounds. I was skin and bones and my hair was thin and falling out.

Yet I made it...

When I was 19 I had my aortic valve replaced again. This time I was only hospitalized for 8 days. That was a record for me.I sailed through that surgery and recovery.


Sometimes life makes absolutely no sense at all.