One Year Later....

Hard to believe we have all come through the first year of this journey!

Donovan is still breathing with borrowed lungs,and each breath continues to amaze. There have been bumps and hurdles, each challenging, each overcome a day at a time.

Life isn't perfect, we have traded a fatal illness for a chronic one, as explained when we first checked out lung transplant as an option last May, (not realizing how soon we'd qualify)...but perfect or not, it is life, and life is good!

Since I last blogged, Donovan has completed a summer as a camp counsellor at Candle lake. What a great opportunity this was. He was able to gain confidence and strength while building into the lives of kids and young adults. While he didn't rest as much he could have, I'm sure he wouldn't have changed a thing! He formed great bonds with friends, and had a million memorable moments. We are so happy for him! He even took up a new sport, skim-boarding!

The summer, however, left Donovan with a lingering cough, which didn't respond to 2 rounds of oral antibiotics. A CT scan at the end of August revealed pneumonia in his left lung. This didn't show up on X-ray weeks earlier, so I hope we caught it before it becomes big trouble. We are on our 3rd week of IV to treat this pest...and it is slowly responding, but the drugs have laid donovan quite low...little appetite, fatigue, the usual reaction to super-strong drugs. A follow-up check in a few weeks will hopefully prove the bug gone. A side note...his lung function two weeks ago, a whopping 95%!!! yay!!!

A whole year...another birthday, Donovan now a man of 21! What can be said, except a heart-felt thank-you, for prayers, for friendship, for the hands that helped and the hearts that cared. We couldn't have done it alone...

While we face another year, each day is lived with the realization that it would not have been possible without the gift that gave him life...and each day, whether good or not so good, is one more we would not have had without that gift. I can't at this point imagine how we would have coped had lungs not become available that day, one year ago. So glad I don't need to dwell on that possibility.

I have learned so much...how to live in this moment, take it and embrace it, it is a moment I won't have again...and this makes each day with Donovan is a good one...whether we are in the midst of medical issues, or kicking back on a beach.

Once again we head into fall. New schedules crowd the calendar squares, and fat tomatoes are turning a lovely crimson in my garden box. The slightest hint of gold etches trees in the park. Darkness falls a few minutes earlier each night, even thought the warmth of summer thankfully lingers on. Fall is a season of transition, marked by glorious colors and a new rhythm as life picks up and carries on after the lull of summer. It beckons us to slow down, breathe a little deeper and feast on what is freely given to enjoy all around.

Fall will always be, for us, a season of miracles...although our second year of transplant awaits,an open door into the unknown, for today we remember a gift, freely given, one that has seen Donovan through, and made believers of many.

May each of you remember the everyday miracles in your life, whatever they may be...just as we give thanks for this day, and all those leading up to it. And to our donor family, who no doubt mark this day with heavy hearts, we pray for comfort, and for them to know a little of the joy they have given others.


Brimming with gratitude,

Love,
Beth