Words...

I love words. The way they can be used to uplift my spirit. Or to make me laugh. Do you know laughing is better than any drug you could ever buy over or under the counter? The emotions a series of words can bring about is just amazing to me. Sometimes words are so powerful, as I start to put them together I will get so overwhelmed by emotion that I have to stop. Especially written words. I feel them so deep it hurts. Sometimes it's a good hurt, sometimes it's a healthy hurt. Sometimes not so much. They can bring about hate and anger. Some people can even fall in love just through written words. Not me. I am too cynical, skeptical, analytical and practical for that. But words....they're more personal than anything else. They can definitely let you see through to a person's soul. I say or write what I mean, and mean what I say or write. My words are true and honest. I love to use words for good. Unfortunately the downside is that words can be used to cause pain. Words can be like a weapon. Words are powerful.Use them for good. Use them to make the world a better place, one word at a time. Speak truth. Speak love. Speak hope.

Amazing Unconditional Love....

I never planned for it.... I never even knew I could......I always loved kids. I was a gymnastics coach ever since I was 13 years old. The kids loved me, I loved them. But I never planned on having kids myself. Even when I got married, I did not really plan to have children. After having been married for 8 years, I did not think I could have them. I did not mind. And then the miracle happened. I found out I was 2 months pregnant by accident.... Running my own blood through the machine in the lab as a "known negative" it did not come up negative at all. SHOCK !! So after what was probably the most difficult pregnancy in history, I was induced at 8 months. Doctors said my heart could not tolerate being pregnant any longer, so on July 3rd, 1997 I entered the hospital birth center at 7 AM. Anxious and surreal. That was the emotion that day. Thank God we had no idea how much more anxious and terrifying the rest of that day and beyond would become.....After 15 hours, finally the moment came. At 10:13 PM there he was. My baby Dominik. He seemed like a beautiful miracle to his dad and myself. Instantly we were filled with love and amazement for this baby. He looked so beautiful. He looked so perfect. We would find out very soon that looks can be deceiving. Not 3 minutes after he was born, they saw that he was having a lot of trouble breathing. They cleaned him, wrapped him and let me give him a quick kiss on his beautiful but gray little face and whisked him away without telling us what was the problem. God only knows that no one will ever experience anxiety and worry like that until they have a child. You just don't plan on starting that worry until they are at least old enough to walk....From there, my baby would not stop fighting for his life for over a month. They told me they did not know if he would live. First his little lungs would not work and they had to hook him up to a ventilator. Poor baby. Normally they get to relax and feed with mommie right after the trauma of child birth. Mine got poked with a million needles, and then was surrounded by the cold hard plastic of all of the sterile medical equipment needed to keep him alive. That was his first escape from death. This lasted for a week. His lungs started working and after 5 days I got to hold him for the first time. I got to see his little face without tape and tubes and wires for the first time. HE HAD DIMPLES! There were "rumors" that we would get to take him home after 10 days. Then his second battle to live would start. Checking every vital sign before our trip home, they found his bloodpressure to be extremely high. If you know anything about bloodpressure numbers, when I say his was 200 over 150 you won't believe it! But unfortunately that's what it was. My baby was close to death once again, and we had not even known it! Thank God they checked it. It's not routine for them to do so, and left untreated, he would have had a stroke at any time and died. So he was raced to Memorial Hospital by ambulance where they have a state of the art NICU. They pumped him full of drugs that turned him gray and limp and once again stuck him with a great number of probes and needles I don't even care to count... The fear was immense. I have never been that scared in my life. Out of my mind. Where do you go, where do you turn, so helpless.....I did not know I could feel that much love for a living "thing" I had never spent a single moment alone with. The amazing, complete and unconditional love I felt for this little gray unresponsive heap of human cuteness..... Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. Well, as most of you know the story does have a happy ending. Dominik will be turning 9 on Monday. The road was long, and the medical bills huge, but he is now a happy healthy and amazing kid. The most amazing kid I have ever met. My GOD how much I have learned from him. He is probably one of the reasons I am alive and completely emotionally stable and healthy today. The love and compassion that boy has. The insight and wisdom he comes up with. The light that shines brightly when he is around. I have been told for years by his teachers, by doctors, that he is a special child. A child that has a special purpose in life. A blessed child. But really, I am blessed. I am blessed to have been given the privalege to have this time with him. Blessed to have been given the gift of medical intervention. Of brilliant doctors that would not stop working on a solution for his incredible medical life threatening mysteries. My son, my hero, my greatest BLESSING in life. I love my Dominik.