This is all new to me, and not something I do easily. I'm a very private person. To quote one of my favorite movies about men sharing their feelings..."Real men hide their feelings. Why? Because it's none of your....business!" (Murphy, Conner, & Rocco in BDS 2) Now, I'm not a man, but it does seem that that's the way I've lived my life up until recently. I always felt that I had to keep my thoughts and feelings guarded. Other people have their own problems they are dealing with, my life probably wasn't really that important to them and, honestly, others don't need to know what's going on in my head!
But in February 2013, I came across a blog called SHINE UNTIL TOMORROW. I read what SPF had to say about making a public proclamation about changing your life, and for some reason, I wrote a response. And what happened a few days later started me down the road I'm on now. He wrote a comment...three little words..."Beautiful! God Bless." I decided maybe it wasn't so bad to open up a bit and share a little of myself. Yes, I know this is a website dedicated to the inspiration of Reedus, but I wanted to give SPF that little nod! (And besides, without him, I never would've gotten around to knowing how motivational Reedus could be!)
My story is on the forum page, probably not as eloquent or poetic as it could be, but it's the facts. You see? My son Justin was born with a heart defect, and at the age of 3 weeks, he suffered a heart attack. We almost lost him far more times than I care to remember when he was little...a constant fear of waking up each morning and finding he hadn't made it through the night. That probably had a lot to do with me feeling that no one needed to know what I was feeling or thinking. It's a pretty hard thing to deal with when you have a three year old also and you're only 23 years-old yourself and you didn't make the best choice in the world for a husband.
But in February 2013, I came across a blog called SHINE UNTIL TOMORROW. I read what SPF had to say about making a public proclamation about changing your life, and for some reason, I wrote a response. And what happened a few days later started me down the road I'm on now. He wrote a comment...three little words..."Beautiful! God Bless." I decided maybe it wasn't so bad to open up a bit and share a little of myself. Yes, I know this is a website dedicated to the inspiration of Reedus, but I wanted to give SPF that little nod! (And besides, without him, I never would've gotten around to knowing how motivational Reedus could be!)
My story is on the forum page, probably not as eloquent or poetic as it could be, but it's the facts. You see? My son Justin was born with a heart defect, and at the age of 3 weeks, he suffered a heart attack. We almost lost him far more times than I care to remember when he was little...a constant fear of waking up each morning and finding he hadn't made it through the night. That probably had a lot to do with me feeling that no one needed to know what I was feeling or thinking. It's a pretty hard thing to deal with when you have a three year old also and you're only 23 years-old yourself and you didn't make the best choice in the world for a husband.
Justin was 3 when I became a single mother with 3 little boys. That was 22 years ago. After the first 10 years and several heart surgeries, Justin's health was pretty good. I began to relax a bit. Then about 3 years ago, things started being not so great. His heart functioning started decreasing, and hearing that your son's heart is only functioning at about 60% capacity and there's really nothing they can do is just as devastating at the age of 44 as it was at the age of 23. Then in January of 2012, I got a frantic phone call from his nurse... Justin was coughing up a bunch of blood and the ambulance was on it's way...and it wouldn't stop. He was airlifted to a hospital in Indianapolis and spent a week in ICU. The pulmonologist was kind enough to not tell me how truly worried he was about Justin for the first several days, until after Justin was over the rough spots. We both KNEW how bad it was, but...
He got better from that and we went along our merry little way. Then in November, it happened again. Two very traumatic physical events in a year. He got better again, and we were sent home with instructions that when it happens again, we were to instruct any ER we ended up in to get him to Indy and once there admit him directly into ICU, even if they did get the bleeding to stop.
I joined Twitter shortly after receiving those three little words from SPF, and I lurked there for a while. Eventually I began to Tweet more and as I picked up more followers. And like most of those die-hard Norman fans, when I see a picture of Norman that I like, I right click and save it. After accumulating so many pictures of him, I began to ask myself "What the heck am I going to do with all these pictures?" So I started making collages and I tweeted them developing a small but loyal base of Twitter friends. Some of those friends kept talking about meeting Norman, and some time during the past year and a half, Justin decided he liked The Walking Dead. We usually take a small vacation so that Justin can stay in a hotel because he loves it! And as I read more and more stories about people meeting Norman, I decided that THAT would be Justin's vacation this year. When he likes someone from TV, he'll look at the TV and point to himself, meaning he wants to see that person that he likes so well or that he's their buddy. Norman seemed to be the one person that Justin loves from TV that I could possibly actually take him to see. I found a con close enough to home that if something happens to Justin we can probably get back to Indy. So we are now scheduled to take a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio in just a couple weeks. Norman had to cancel his date for the 20th and 21st, but the Wizard World was able to book him for the following Saturday. So it looks like we are taking our short weekend vacation in two weeks and then following that up the next Saturday with a 8 hour round trip to actually meet the person who has inspired my son to put so much work into sitting up straight and controlling his wheelchair better!
I'll keep you posted!
@Tammyh765
He got better from that and we went along our merry little way. Then in November, it happened again. Two very traumatic physical events in a year. He got better again, and we were sent home with instructions that when it happens again, we were to instruct any ER we ended up in to get him to Indy and once there admit him directly into ICU, even if they did get the bleeding to stop.
I joined Twitter shortly after receiving those three little words from SPF, and I lurked there for a while. Eventually I began to Tweet more and as I picked up more followers. And like most of those die-hard Norman fans, when I see a picture of Norman that I like, I right click and save it. After accumulating so many pictures of him, I began to ask myself "What the heck am I going to do with all these pictures?" So I started making collages and I tweeted them developing a small but loyal base of Twitter friends. Some of those friends kept talking about meeting Norman, and some time during the past year and a half, Justin decided he liked The Walking Dead. We usually take a small vacation so that Justin can stay in a hotel because he loves it! And as I read more and more stories about people meeting Norman, I decided that THAT would be Justin's vacation this year. When he likes someone from TV, he'll look at the TV and point to himself, meaning he wants to see that person that he likes so well or that he's their buddy. Norman seemed to be the one person that Justin loves from TV that I could possibly actually take him to see. I found a con close enough to home that if something happens to Justin we can probably get back to Indy. So we are now scheduled to take a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio in just a couple weeks. Norman had to cancel his date for the 20th and 21st, but the Wizard World was able to book him for the following Saturday. So it looks like we are taking our short weekend vacation in two weeks and then following that up the next Saturday with a 8 hour round trip to actually meet the person who has inspired my son to put so much work into sitting up straight and controlling his wheelchair better!
I'll keep you posted!
@Tammyh765
