Blogging has been a relaxing activity for me over the last year, but I have just been at a loss lately of what to write. We are walking into the anniversaries of the downward spiral in Ryan's health. I know that as I go through the next 12 weeks I will be thinking about the roller coaster that was my life a year ago. I don't know if these are thoughts and feelings I want to share; I don't know if these are thoughts and feelings that others want to hear.

When I realized that today was March 12, it reminded me that it was one year ago that Ryan was unexpectedly hospitalized at University Hospital. We had made the two hour trip the night before, so that we could be at U of M bright and early for his right heart cath (the last test he needed to have done in order to be placed on the lung transplant list). Upon arriving at the hospital, it was determined that Ryan was too sick to undergo the procedure. For some reason, the news was hard for me to hear. I struggled with the fact that Ryan was going to be hospitalized 2 hours from home so they could treat the same influenza and pneumonia that he had just been treated for in the hospital at home.

I felt lost and confused being in a strange place. I didn't know the hospital. I didn't know the doctors or nurses. My kids were so far away. How strange that only two weeks later that same hospital would become "home". Those same doctors and nurses would become family. I would become numb to the fact that I could only see my children for a few hours on the weekends.

Reflecting on this past year is unbelievable. The highs and the lows. The tears and the laughter. The love and the loneliness. Such extremes. All of these things have changed me and made me into a different person from a year ago.