I may have mentioned that I got the rights back to my book, Heart Warriors, A Family Faces Congenital Heart Disease. I am almost done with rewriting it to include my journey with post traumatic stress disorder, but that journey is still unfolding. Tonight is an anniversary – the anniversary of my child’s first surgical scar. It’s on his wrist. It’s still there. I sometimes see it at the dinner table. Unlike the scars on his chest or groin, which I never see anymore now that he’s seventeen, the ones… Read more An Anniversary Book Excerpt →
My daughter turns twelve tomorrow. Today I went to a jewelry store with a silver charm that I received for my own twelfth birthday. The jeweler cleaned the charm and placed it on a new silver chain. The charm is round and reads “Grown Up Twelve.” But I was not a grown up at twelve and neither is my daughter. She may stop growing soon, like I did when I was ten, but we were both still little girls at twelve, despite looking like women well before our time. This… Read more grown up twelve →
The Denver skyline shot up during early 1980s, and, my dad helped build it. Dad, a welder, came to Colorado in 1979 for the construction boom. However, for much of his… Read more States of Permanence, States of Grace →
I’ve never read The Hunger Games, or The Fault in Our Stars. It’s not that I’m dismissive of young adult (YA) literature, it’s just not my thing. I also don’t read westerns, mysteries, science fiction, or most fantasy, but I do read the news and couldn’t miss the frenzy over The Fault in Our Stars film and author John Green. I was curious about the title because I’d read that it was from a Shakespeare play, so I looked it up. The source quote is from Julius Caesar and about… Read more The Fault in Our Hearts →
Staying true to not writing about Liam’s personal life, I’m going to do my best to share only my feelings. Sufficed to say, Liam has never, ever liked Holter monitors, a documented historical fact, and it’s not gotten any better. The Holter monitor came back yesterday, it’s like a boomerang. For those not in the know, a Holter monitor is a smallish box that connects to five leads that are attached to the skin over the ribs and sternum, and Liam happens to be allergic to the adhesive in most… Read more G is for Graduation, H is for Holter →
I wrote this on Facebook tonight. What a blessing it is to forget. Eleven years ago right now, I was drifting off on my very first overnight in a hospital, 22 hours later I would have a living child. 34 hours later we would chose for him: life or death with no guarantees of the former and plenty of opportunity for the latter. Eleven years ago, at this moment, on a Sunday night, I fell asleep on the precipice of the most precarious fall and meteoric bounce a mother could… Read more Eleven →
An early draft of my first book about my son’s several heart surgeries, included a chapter of upsetting things people said to me. These comments might be seen as microagression, or I may have just been hypersensitive. My friends whose children are like my son loved that part. People who hadn’t lived through a similar experience were confused. One of those friends asked, “What can we say?” That question led to a list of supportive things to say and do. Many people told me that was helpful. Since then, however, I’ve seen a ton of blogs… Read more Whatever you Say →
I am not sleeping, so I will write. Tonight (which is now yesterday) at dinner, Liam asked, “Do you know what today is?” and Jim and I looked at each… Read more It Was a Monday →
Amanda Rose Adams 