So grateful to be getting older!

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today so I'm taking a detour from my usual posts--few as there have been recently.

Thirty years ago yesterday, I was in congestive heart failure, more ill than I was willing to admit even to myself.  My mitral valve was so stenotic that the left atrium of my heart was enlarged and there was extreme pressure in the pulmonary veins coming from my lungs.  I could not walk a flight of stairs without stopping to rest and even though I had been teaching until a couple of days earlier, I had found myself resting against the walls as I worked with my students.  It wasn't until I looked back that I realized how close I had been to death.

I am so grateful I live in the time I do, because a talented team of people led by a gifted surgeon gave me another chance.  This is like my second birthday and I can't help but celebrate.  Thirty years ago my husband could have been left alone with a 5-year-old and a 14-year-old.  Now they are grown up, successful, and have given me six fabulous grandchildren.  Oh, what I would have missed!

In August there will be another celebration because I needed that surgeon and his team again ten years later.  That time, I knew the kind of trouble I was in.  But that is a story for another day.  Today I am remembering the gift from 30 years ago and feeling grateful for each and every day.