Wednesday, July 11, 2012

14 Months. 15 Days.

Wow, I cannot believe it's been 14 months since my heat transplant. It feels like just yesterday I received my new heart. I know it's been a while since my last post but every since I made it to the one year mark, I've been pretty busy. All of my annual test came back perfect. GEtting the tests done were the hard part. They were unable to access my vein during my biopsy and couldn't get a clear picture of my heart during my echo. Also, there seemed to be something with my lungs when they got my x-ray back because I needed to do another breathing test, which came back fine. Once all my tests were finally completed my doctors said that all my numbers were so good that if they hadn't known I had a heart transplant, they wouldn't' be able to tell!

A view of Venice


A few days after celebrating my anniversary, I spent 2 weeks in Italy with Tony and his parents. It was truly an amazing trip! We spent time with his family there as well as visiting the usual Italian cities such as Verona, Florence, Venice and even spent a day in Switzerland! I got to see some of the greatest works of art by some of the most famous artist and I have never seen such beautiful churches!

Tony & I on Pike's Peak


A week after returning from Italy, Tony and I flew out to Colorado for a long weekend for his friends wedding. This was my first trip to the rocky mountains and they are truly awe inspiring! While taking a cog train up to the top of Pike's Peak (14,110 ft), I couldn't believe how clearly you could see how the mountains were carved by glaciers millions of years ago. It was also great to meat some of Tony's friends from college and see where he went to college. The weather on both trips was gorgeous! We were in Italy for 2 weeks and had one day of rain and it was in the 90s while in Colorado. One theme that seemed to have followed us along our journeys were natural disasters. In Italy there were some big earthquakes (luckily we didn't feel them and where we were there was no damage) and in Colorado wildfires broke out.

USA! USA! USA!


Also while in Colorado, we drove down the US Olympic Training Center, which for anyone who knows me, I was ecstatic about! I saw Olympic medals and torches from the 1984 LA, 1996 Atlanta and 2002 Salt Lake City Games! We saw where athletes like Michael Phelps train and he was actually on the campus while we were there! It was between training so he was most likely resting or eating some his daily 16000 calories he eats while he trains. We also saw the shooting center, weight room, wrestling area as we'll as the Dream Team's basketball court and the men's gymnastics training area. 15 days from today I will embarking on my next trip which will be to London to cheer on Team USA in person! I'm so excited I can't even describe it! I have tickets to Beach Volleyball, Basketball and I will venturing outside London for the Rowing Finals so I will see a medal ceremony! I'm still trying to secure tickets to the Opening Ceremonies, the most elusive tickets to find, but I'm confident I will find a way into the stadium!


I could go on for hours about all  my trips but I don't want to bore you all to death. I will update again once I return from London. Thank you again for all of your support throughout the last 2 years and I look forward to continuing to heal and live my life to the fullest!