BACKGROUND

As many of you know, Jodie was born with congenital heart defects and had surgery at 10 days and 18 months old. She did ok throughout childhood, but had to be on some medications through high school, then another was added in college. Jodie went on to grad school, and unexpectedly required a valve replacement in 2007. It turned out she was in the early stages of heart failure, but only found out after the procedure. She needed to get a pacemaker since her heart stopped beating on its own, and then a few months later upgraded to a pacemaker/ defibrillator due to low heart function. In 2008, Jodie was told that she would eventually need a heart transplant, and that the doctor predicted it to be necessary within the next 5 years.

In the 12+ years since then, Jodie was upgraded to a bi-ventricular pacemaker/defibrillator which helped her feel better but didn't improve her numbers, had it replaced two more times due to the battery almost running out (normal process), was put on a new medication that helped her feel much better but still didn't improve the numbers. Then in April of 2019 things started to get interesting. Jodie went into an atrial flutter and after 3 weeks, had to be cardioverted (think being shocked with paddles, but more controlled and while under anesthesia) to get her rhythm back to normal. Then over the summer she started feeling more and more tired, and having slightly worse symptoms. Jodie had some tests in August that showed things were worse, and the doctor told us in October that we would need to check back in early 2020 to see how things are. After having those tests, its clear that Jodie needs to have a heart transplant.


WHY DID WE START THIS BLOG?

Jodie and Peter decided to keep this blog for a few reasons. First, as a way to keep our friends and family up to date. Second, as a way to share how we are doing and what we are going through (and potentially what we need). Third, as a way to document this journey.

We have learned that we want the people around us, and those who care about us, to know what is going on, but don't always have the energy to talk about it over and over. We will be sharing was is "on our hearts" as we go through this journey. We welcome you to check in as often as you like. Thoughts and prayers are much appreciated. You are always welcome to reach out individually, but please feel free to leave comments on our posts and we will try to respond to everyone when we can. We are also planning to use this platform to share news when we don't have time or energy to send to everyone.

Some of our posts may be more emotional, and some may be about more mundane things. Once we get to step 4, it could take anywhere between 1 day and a year or more to reach step 5. We have no way to know. As we are in that waiting period, we do know that one of the things that will be helpful to us will be to keep busy - board game nights, movies, etc. If you are nearby, please do reach out. While Jodie can't be doing anything too strenuous right now, we still want to connect with people. If things come up that we need or could use help on, we may post it here, or reach out specifically to those who have let us know they want to help.

Thank you for walking with us through this journey as we share what is on our hearts. Please check back for updates. We will add information as it becomes available and as we go through the process ahead.

God bless,
Jodie & Peter Elliott

Sunday, September 6, 2020

What a week

 This last week has been really good.  I got in morning walks 4 days last week, with one day missed being because I didn't sleep well, one because I was going to have a long work day so was conserving energy, and the third the day after the long work day and I was tired.  

We have a few "couple" friends down here.  The ones we see most, Colleen and Matt are going to be moving.  Its both happy and sad.  Happy,  Colleen got a job up in Boston!  She finished her PhD this spring, and her job offers went away with universities closing down, so this is great.  It's sad because we won't see them as often, and also because we are in the midst of playing pandemic legacy season 2.  They came over on Friday night, and using our outdoor setup where we have a canopy over the deck, our outdoor table, and fan set up so the air is blowing away from me, we played while masked and enjoyed a dim sum dinner.  We actually won our game after having lost the last 4 times (the game is legitimately hard).  So now we have 4 more 'months' to play to finish (the game is broken up into 12 months, and you can play each twice).  While Colleen will be moving next week, Matt will be here at least another month.  So we are planning to try to play the rest of the board game with Colleen video chatted in.  It is a cooperative game, so it won't totally be the same, but will be much easier to video in one person versus 2.  We are really hoping to finish the game, as we've put in a lot of hours on it so far.  Initially, my surgery got in the way as I was hospitalized, and due to the actual pandemic we haven't been able to have Colleen and Matt in the house, so that has made it so there have been big chunks of time between games.  Either way, it was nice to hang out with them.  Since we know we will be going to Maine again for years come (just not this one), its good to know that we can stay in touch with them. 

We were up late Friday night playing, so I slept in a bit on Saturday.  AT&T came in the early afternoon to hook up fiber internet, as we've been having issues with ours from Spectrum.  When they were done, for some reason I had a hankering for an Italian sub.  The issue being that I can't have cold lunchmeat.  Peter needed to run an errand, so i tagged along.  I looked at some menus along the way, and we decided to try Jersey Mikes, since they have both hot and cold subs.  We went to the one closest to where Peter's errand was, and as Peter was going to go in and order, we noticed that despite a sign saying masks are required, there was someone in the store without one. This was a complete no go.  Luckily, there are a bunch of these around, so we went to one that is close to a park with a pond.  Peter went in, and the staff was really nice about grilling up my meat & cheese, then putting it on the bun.  We went to the park in Cary, which was TEEMING with people, so there was no way we were getting out of the car to eat.  I was quite hungry at that point, so we ate in the car with a view of the pond.  The sub was good and hit the spot.  It's nice to know that is an option for the few times I feel like a sub.  We decided to try another park that has a smaller pond with a walking trail arouond it on the way home.  This one was surprisingly not too busy except for the basketball court.  We did two laps around the pond, which is about a quarter mile each lap.  The day was beautiful, and we are thinking we should do this more often!  We headed home then, and invited our across the street neighbors over for a board game.  We did the same set up in the back, and it was nice.

This morning I actually woke up and was somewhat functional before 8!  We did a morning walk with Stella. After that, I put in our Instacart order (I've started to just add things throughout the week so it does not take as long in the moment) and had a cup a tea. My childhood friend Tabatha sent me a subscription box that has 4 loose leaf teas in it.  I was suprised and excited, and the first one I tried, an Oolong from Thailand, was delicious.  All the teas are locally sourced from small farmers, and it comes with cute little cotton bags for steeping made in Kansas of NC cotton.  I'm looking forward to trying the other three - a lady grey, a green tea with toasted rice, and an herbal with a blood orange flavor.  I also love the idea of a washable steeping back - I got four with this months.  I don't know if they send the bags every month but if they do that will be nice in the long run. The instacart order was ready sooner than expected, so Peter is off to go get it.  It is now not quite 10am, and I am feeling pretty darn productive so far.  We have plans for our next door neighbors to come for a game in the early evening, and to do a virtual game with my cousin Liz and her husband Brad sometime this weekend.  

In terms of work, I had a few just about, or over 8 hour days this week.  We also launched our new online coaching training, which has been what I've been putting in a lot of hours for the last three weeks.  It's been adapating the material we already have from a 4 day in person to a 6 week online setting, and learning to use Sakai, which is an online system Duke uses for course.  It was a bit of a learning curve, but I'm really happy with how the site looks and I'm hoping that the new coaches find it easy to do.  We have our first online training session next saturday.  

Hope you are enjoying your long weekend, that you're finding a new normal where you can socialize safely, and that you're productive when you want to be.   

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