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

Monday, February 1, 2021

Dose 2 and good food

 I got my dose 2 of the covid vaccine on Friday.  Other than arm pain, I was feeling ok.  I went to bed early, as I was a bit tired (most likely from my swim the night before), and as I laid down I got a headache.  My temperature was elevated at 99.7, but it has been that high before when I'm just normal, so wasn't sure if I should attribute it to the vaccine.  I was trying not to take tylenol, but ended up being up all night.  Between the throbbing headache and having to get up to go to the bathroom due to drinking so much water in a day, it was a long night.  Peter got up at his usual 5:00am and got me tylenol, after which my headache finally calmed down.  I turned off my alarm to sleep in. Peter brought me my 9am pills, but otherwise I slept in until 11am. 

When I got up I felt pretty normal.  My arm still hurt, but otherwise fine.  I was actually a bit disappointed, as I was hoping for more of a known immune response.  That isn't to say that my immune system didn't do anything, but I won't know without an antibody test. 

Saturday I spent sewing.  My old big sewing machine has been having issues for years, and I finally realized that instead of enjoying my hobby and stress reliever, it was causing more stress and making it not fun to sew.  I was able to find a really good mechanical quilting machine that doesn't have any bells and whistles.  It took some getting used to, but I LOVE this machine now.  Once I figured out how to not break the thread, it is making sewing the quilt together a breeze.  This is actually the part of quilting I like the least, as it normally is really hard to wrangle that much fabric through a machine.  This one makes it simple, and was so much more enjoyable. 

I'm 95% done with Liz and Brad's wedding quilt.  As soon as that is done, I'd like to pin Peter and my honeymoon quilt and get it done.  Stephanie and I are taking a mystery quilting class that is 6 weeks long, and I'm already behind 2 weeks, so I'm using finishing these other two quilts as the carrot at the end of my stick to motivate me to finish these projects.  It will be nice to have those done and then get to focus on the lessons, which are great to watch and will be teaching me a bunch of new skills.  I already learned how to sew polygons and do Y seams so they lay flat.  I don't think I've ever used more than a 4 sided polygon in a quilt design because I've thought they would be really annoying they aren't really.  I'll also be learning to do curved seams and some intricate piecing.  I'm excited. 

Sunday I had booked a morning swim.  After my first swim last week, and realizing that my bathing suit barely fit, I bought a new one that is the right size and has shorts at the bottom.  Much more comfortable. I also got some booties to wear as I do my water laps, and an aquatic dumbell to bring with my.  For now, I can only really do one lap swimming, which is ok.  My plan is to use up my full 30 minutes regardless.  So I will do a walking lap, then at the end do some type of water aerobic.  I have 7-8 exercises I can do, so if I do one at the end of each lap, ideally I can get faster to where I can do 15-16 laps.  Of course, a few of the exercises work better in the deeper water (the ones with the dumbell, so maybe less.  I got in 14 walking laps and 1 full swimming lap.  I like to swim under water and then do a pretty involved stroke (not sure that it is an official one, but its basically the same stroke I do underwater).  I may try a simple standard freestyle stroke and see how I do with that next time.  Since I'm allowed to book up to a week in the future, I was able to book 3 times for next week.  I'm enjoying this so far, and the water walking is much easier on my knees. 

I've been making more of an effort to move during the day, and I did a few house laps when my fitbit buzzed.  Peter and I decided to try one of the meal delivery services and decided to try SunBasket.  We got our first box today, and made  a chicken tangine for dinner that was delicious!  We have 3 more meals for this week, so we will see what we think and if we want to continue next week.  We are finding that neither of minds cooking, but its often that we don't have together what we need to cook.  This was fairly easy to do, took about 30 minutes, and we picked meals that are all right around the same amount of calories, so we can better plan our days.  

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