The Heart of My Boy

Tuesday is Zane's yearly cardiology appointment. It has been a little over a year since his last appointment, since it took a while to get the transfer from STL to OKC cardiologist complete. So over the past few weeks I will remember that this is happening and be jarred into the reality that four years later the thought of taking him to this appointment every year completely stresses me out. I don't know why, nothing ground breaking is going to happen Tuesday, I know that. However it's still scary, I worry about how Zane will handle it, I worry about what they will say, how much closer will he be to his next surgery this year.

This past week, while the thought of this appointment loomed in the back of my mind, I had a God moment happen. I was at work and a nurse I was working with asked if I would come talk to a family on the floor whose baby had TOF and was admitted for a viral illness, pre repair. These are the moments that all we've been through seem completely worth it. I talked to the parents for a few minutes, answering the questions they have been asking themselves for months, every day, every moment. "Is he normal?" "Did he have any complications?" "How old was he when he had to get his repair?" All the questions that I remember trying to get answered for four months and no one could give me a straight answer.

I was able to give these parents completely straight, I've been through it, answers. And by the complete grace of God my answers are reassuring, no complications, a great ending, and a wonderfully normal, happy, crazy boy. The next day this family was heading home and a nurse came to find me saying, "There is a dad looking for the blonde nurse with the TET baby." That's me!!! I've never been happier to be the nurse with the TET baby. I was so happy to share my story, to maybe be able to help someone sleep a little bit better at night, to maybe cry a little bit less, is truly a blessing.

The biggest thing I could tell parents of TET babies, for whom the experience is new and terrifying, is that four years later there are days that I do not think about my son's heart condition, at all. That might seem like not a big thing, but for years this wasn't a reality for me. If Zane didn't love his scar so much and if he wasn't so proud of his story I would think about it much less. But with that being said, I'm a day out from Zane's yearly appointment and I'm still nervous. So some things get easier, but some things remain hard. It's hard, it's scary, but I'm stronger for it.

Tonight, as I read over the paper I was suppose to read weeks ago, I couldn't stop thinking about my son's heart. Four years later here's what I thought. My son's heart is special, no one else has one quite like it. It's strong and gives my son an unbelievable amount of energy. My son's heart has the ability to love stronger and than any child I've ever known. He has a deep love for everyone in his family from his parents and brother to every Aunt, Uncle, cousin, and Grandparent. He cries with sadness when he leaves them because he loves them all so much. He loves his stripe, one of the things I worried the most about pre repair. How would he handle having a scar? He embraced it, he tells everyone who will listen about it, and he draws stripes on his stuffed animals. We have to have talks about how everyone is special, even if they don't have a stripe. His heart spreads happiness and love to all he meets. His heart is so much more than what is wrong with it, or the one day a year we go to see how it's working. I pray he never changes, though I know his little heart will.

Love you Zane!

Ten on Tuesday

1. This trip we decided to split up the drive there by spending the night in Springfield then driving the rest of the way Thursday morning. This worked wonderfully and allowed time for all sort of hotel fun. Spending the night in a hotel was often all my vacations as a child entailed, so I know how much fun it is for kids. We went swimming, sat in the hot tube, at pizza, drank Ginger Ale, ate pretzels (it was New Years Eve after all), then had a night full of Zane's constant movement! Lots of fun!

Ro got his own suitcase for this trip and handled it like a pro!

 "I swim more mamma!"

 Ro made himself at home and I think slept pretty well.

 New Year's Eve selfie!!

Zane woke up at midnight, so we did get to ring in the New Year. He stayed awake until around one, then woke up again at four and asked, "Mamma can you change the time? I want to keep my eyes open!!!"

2. Zach and I passed the time on the road by listening to the pod cast Serial. It was a great way to pass the time, but a horribly frustrating twelve hours, ending with SPOILER ALERT:  figuring out nothing. I mean seriously what about the Nesha call??? Zach and landed firmly on opposite sides of what we think happened for what it's worth. If you have already listened to Serial and haven't seen the SNL skit that is making fun of it, do yourself a favor and google it because it is amazing!

3. Since we drove the second leg of the trip Thursday morning we got there with plenty of time for fun on Thursday afternoon. It was wonderful to get to see my niece and nephews again. I miss them so much and they are all growing up way too fast. Here are all six grandkids, ready for present time Friday morning.

 Left to right: Clay (11yrs), Rowan (22mnths), Adeline(8yrs on the 10th), Zane(4yrs), Levi (5yrs), Blaine (10yrs)

These too had a great time together. Zane has officially surpassed Levi in height by a solid inch.

 Clay read Zane a snake book and then they swapped snake stories!

4. Everyone got wonderful presents that the boys enjoyed playing with the rest of the weekend and spent all day yesterday enjoying them as well. 

 Of course you can never go wrong buying Zane a new costume. He was switched between pirate and nurse (God love him) for days. "Mamma I a nurse, just like you, I help people when they sick." So sweet.

 The Spiderman race track was a big hit with everyone involved. Think it could use new batteries already, that's a sign of a good toy.

 Ro adores his new block table, if you can't tell by this face. Thanks Aunt Trina!!

5. The other big gift was Rowan's chest that Papa made for him. All the boys get a box and Ro's box came complete with a gift to fill it with, castle blocks. Rowan might be a little too young to really enjoy them, but don't worry everyone else loved them. After multiple failed attempts of building a castle with the boys, Zach waited until the boys were asleep and made a big castle using all the blocks. 

 Clay was able to build his castle, using all the blocks, in a house full of people and children. Which I found very impressive!

6. As I mentioned above Thursday our niece Adeline is turning eight. She is such a sweet girl, I wish I could spend more time with her. She is very artistic and a wonderful lego builder, just like her brothers. She was a great help with Rowan, making sure he made it up and down the stairs safely and bringing him back to his mommy/daddy whenever he needed us. So Happy Birthday to Miss Adeline, we love you!!

 She also helped Uncle Zach fix Grammie's clock so it would a ring on the hour instead of thirteen after. We could have a future engineer on our hands.

7. We set a time record on the way home, making it back in just under nine hours. Which is a huge improvement from a solid ten hours the past couple times. Not locking our kids in the car probably helped with our record time. We had finished our podcast within an hour of leaving SEMO, so it was back to singing songs from the nineties, which is pretty fun too.

8. I started on my running program to train for the April Marathon relay yesterday. I remembered how much I hate running. I think it's because I use to run all the time. My senior year in college, and into my first year of marriage, right up until I almost was murdered a couple times in Columbia, MO. I ran 3-6 miles a few times a week and it was lots of fun. I was in shape, it was a great stress relief, and I enjoyed it. Now it's just kind of depressing and painful. But I will do my training program three days a week and something more fun the other days at the gym I guess. Maybe I'll get there again. Sigh...

9. The boys spent most of the day yesterday dressing up as various things. I bought new hooks for Zane's room, but I think he could use a least one more row. Pretty much any empty wall space in Zane's room is getting hooks for his costumes and hats. He loves them so I feel like they should be easily accessible. I tried to dress Ro up as a little pirate with Zane, but he insisted on the police outfit with a Cardinals hat instead. 

10. This weekend we will wrap up our weeks long Christmas celebration with Christmas at the farm. This week also marks the start of me going back to working two days a week. We have been able to change the boys daycare schedule so we only have to pay for two days a week, which means our daycare bill has also been cut in half. I'm very excited and hopefully we can afford it or I'll have to pick up weekends for extra money. We shall see... Hopefully everyone is having a wonderful start to 2015, so far so great here at the Korenak household!!

Year in Review: 2014

January 2014

 We started the year at Mom's house and ended January moving into the first rental house of the year. Rowan learned how to walk this month and Zane wrote his name for the first time.

February 2014

 This month we settled into our new house and tried to make the most of it. Below are the boys on Valentine's day. I can't believe how Zane still has a bit of a baby face in this picture.

 And of course this guy turned one on the 21st!

March 2014

 I went back to work in March and missed these two faces dearly!

 Zach and I went back to St. Louis for Adam's wedding.

April 2014

 Easter at the farm ended with all of us getting sick.

 Zane went to his first baseball game.

May 2014

 Zane ran in his first Dude's Dash,

 we got fish again,

 and I turned thirty one.

June 2014

 Farm fun at Grandma's,

 Zane started swimming lessons, and turned four years old.

July 2014

 All the joys of summer.

 August 2014

 August brought the move to our second rental house of the year

 and family vacation to Branson with the Wamser clan!

September 2014

 Zach turned thirty one,

 these two got hitched at the end of the month,

and boy did we party!!

October 2014

 October always brings post season baseball, which means little boys in lots of Cardinals gear.

 This picture below is my favorite one of the boys all year.

 Zane's heart birthday celebrations were lots of fun this year.

  

And of course Halloween fun went on all month.

November 2014

 Grammie and Papa came to visit, we had our first snow, and of course there was lots of Thanksgiving fun as well!

 December 2014

 December brought this face, lots of Christmas celebrations, and of course the return of our beloved Elf Gary. We ended our year headed to South East Missouri to celebrate Christmas with the Korenak side of the family.

 

 It was a great year with lots of stress and change, but we have ended it more settled and more blessed than ever. Happy New Year to everyone, I can't wait to see what lies ahead for us in 2015.