Baltimore - Day Three

Today the bombs dropped using our heads as their target. As bombs usually do they have destroyed everything in our paths and their aftermath is devastating.

Max’s cardiac MRI today completely changed yesterday’s optimism about Max’s aortic valve. We have been told that in the last year the valve has deteriorated substantially and now pushes nearly half of its blood flow in the wrong direction. At best we have a year before Max will need open-heart surgery, his third and certainly not his last, to repair or replace the valve depending on what they find when they get in and have a better look at the valve. Either option will do nothing more than buy us time until the next valve surgery and the next and the next…..

Our hearts are heavy and the tears are many. Max is older now and he knows what it means when mom cries, he hasn’t let go of me since we left the surgeon’s office. He’s trying to convince me it will be OK, imagine my eight year old who faces so much is comforting me instead of the other way around.