I made it to Portland! (um- pouring rain!)

just getting my jacket & gear ready for tomorrow morning!

Sami & Ally this one's for you! I love you guys!

Well, it’s been a long 24 hours!  I was a nervous wreck that is for sure.  Not really for the bike ride but for the whole anticipation of the trip.  I get nervous just knowing I am flying somewhere.  But then it really is more about fearing more things as we get older.  Sandi and I were just talking about that.  It seems that the more comfortable we get with our lives the more fear we seem to have.  I remember being in college and thinking nothing of driving four hours to see Kevin In Vermont!  So I think that the older we get the more we have to push ourselves.  Think of it as staying out of complacency!   Facing our fears is just away of keeping our minds sharp and our hearts open.  This ride should be nothing to me compared to some of the stuff we have been through!  One of the worst times so far in this journey has been getting us all through Alex’s spinal surgery.  I can remember like it was yesterday when the ax came crashing down on me!  We had to see the ortho surgeon as a yearly routine thing to monitor scoliosis for both the girls. 

Every year for the first six or so years I would be so sick before the appointment.  I hated to see that xray of their spines.  So this one year would be different, I was so much more relaxed and at ease!  It was a crazy appointment.  I ran Alex into xray and then helped weight and measure her then put her in a room.  I went out and got Sam in xray then helped measure her, but when I went to hold her up we fell.  Of course I tried to make light of it but Sam was so embarressed and upset.  She said,  ”mom please just leave me here a minute.”  What else could I do but respect her wishes.  I turned and walked into the exam room, the surgeon was standing in front of Alex’s xray; as I stood in front of him he said, “Her spine has moved to 64 degrees we need to talk about a fusion”.  I remember feeling just like I did the day they gave me the diagnosis of Friedreich’s Ataxia.  I was there but I wasn’t.  My mind somehow coped by leaving my body.  Odd as it seems, you are aware of what is going on but you don’t have any feeling, you take it in and it registers but you are numb.  I wanted to just open the door and run…………..but I didn’t.  I went out, picked Sammy up and we both went into that room together.  Like we always do, face it together…….Like how my parents taught me to handle things.  So for the next months we got ready, as ready as anyone can get for this.  The night before her surgery I laid on the bathroom floor most of the night and vomitted!  It’s true!  With the exception of the phone call to my doctor’s office to tell them that I must be having a heart attack, I was sweaty and sick and my chest was caving in on me.  He’s reply was short and cold, he said of course I was NOT having a heart attack, a stomach bug was hardly going to give me a heart attack!  Boy was he wrong…..I was having an attack alright…..a please GOD don’t do this to my beautiful daughter attack.  So I did what I did that night that would help me get through the surgery for Ally.  And I was able to pull myself together for her and for Sam.  She was so brave through it all.  She was a senior in high school and she really handled everything at home.  That was her way of coping.  But we did it we all got through it!  And I got through it like I’ll make it through this journey because of so many people in our lives. Believe me I say it way too often.  We have fun but we are really a very high maintenance family.  I am so grateful to our friends who stick by us…..and it is mostly the people who read this blog!  So you all know how hard it is sometimes to stick by us!

I know at times I get tired of myself MYSELF!  But it is so hard to get away from me !

So thanks for reading this personal entry…….I think it is important sometimes to know that it isn’t all just a bowl of candy!  But we all go through this stuff and we all find our own ways of getting through………Mine is with the strength of so many wonderful people in my life!  So for that I say thanks!

This is a great exercise for meeting people!

thinks this is a great movement! kindness!

I’ll got to Portland by about midnight (3am Connecticut time)  I have given some hearts out to some GREAT people.  They are for the most part interested in being nice to each other.  Both pilots on my first flight took two .  I am meeting some very handsome guys for some reason .

One day left till we pedal off!

cab driver! great tips on the bike route!

Until then- oh yeah!  snowing in Seattle right now!

In Peace and Love………

Always,

Meir