Where to start?

I feel as if we have everything and nothing to catch you up on. Since August 21, our lives have consisted of trying to balance work, school work, unpacking and working on the house. There's a slight part of me that feels guilty that we've been here for a month and a half and things still aren't quite put together, but I know we have more on our plates than most people do right when they move. So we've already made two huge notes to self: paint before you move in and do not move in the weekend before school starts. Oh well... live and learn!

Here's a sample of what we've done:

When we moved in, everything in the house was a lovely shade of white. I can't find the exact same angle, but this will show you the dramatic change:


It's green! It's definitely not a color that everyone would want in their house, but we love it! We have lots of black furniture and curtains to help calm it down too. I'll post more pictures after we have it fully decorated.

Somewhere in the midst of all the painting and unpacking we also took a few minutes to celebrate my 25th birthday. This was the first year since my junior year of high school that I was actually with my parents on my birthday, so it was fun to get to relive the memories with them.

In more serious news, we did have quite a scare at the beginning of September. My mom and I went to Dallas for what I assumed was going to be another routine cardiologist check up. This year was the year that everything wasn't routine. When they take an echo of my heart, it typically takes 15 to 20 minutes tops. This year the echo took about an hour, and my cardiologist came in to take a few of the images herself. The time length and that she came in were huge red flags for us. When she came in to discuss how my heart was looking, she was very concerned that my right ventricle is 2 to 2 1/2 times larger than what it should be. This was only my second time to see her and they did not have an echo to go off of from last year, so we had to do an MRI again to see how the size of my heart truly compares to last year. The cardiologist was concerned because in women who have repaired tetralogy of fallot, their hearts enlarge during pregnancy. Because pregnancy is more of a possibility now than it has even been before, she felt like another surgery to replace my valve might be needed soon before we have children.

We did an MRI that day so that she could have a better idea of the size of my heart, and then we waited for three long days before we heard from her with the results. Mind you, all three days we were preparing for a December open heart surgery. When she finally called, she said that the MRI revealed that yes, my right ventricle was 2 1/2 times the size of a normal one, but that it was actually the same size as last year and that she talked to another doctor and that I wouldn't actually need another surgery before I got pregnant. (Note: this is all a very condensed version of this story!)

While we were excited to hear that I wouldn't need the surgery, we're still very leery of the 180 degrees difference from when we first met with her to the end of the week. Right now we are looking to get a second opinion from a major heart clinic here in the US so that we can be sure of what needs to happen with my heart before Cody and I start having kids.

This is definitely the most scattered and random blog post that I have made, but any type of blog post was long overdue and this somewhat catches you up on what's going on in our lives. Travel season for work is close to being finished for me, so I will try to pick up my blogging after that. Stay tuned tomorrow... I just got a new hair and I know you want to see the changes!