Where to Begin...

Hello Blog World!  As you can probably tell, I am new to this so I am going to start by sharing a few interesting things about me.  I really have lived an incredible life thus far and by all accounts, I should have been a cat from the lives I have used up!  Some may consider me a medical miracle...

I was born with a congenital heart defect and at age 7 had open heart surgery to repair my Aortic Valve.  Two weeks spent in Toronto, Canada was almost a vacation for a small town girl from Northern Manitoba.  After a successful surgery and recovery period, my highlight was and still is to this day was to meet Lanny McDonald and Daryl Sitler who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. After the surgery, I was able to regain a normal childhood and haven't had any problems since!

My daughter Sidney, which I am sure you will hear more about in future blogs, was born on an air ambulance.  She was a footling breech and 6 weeks preterm and wasn't waiting for a major medical facility to be anywhere in sight before she made her Grand entrance! We had to make an emergency landing in The Pas, MB because she was born 15 minutes after take off...on a stormy September morning.  All worked out well, mainly because of wonderful medical staff and small town urgency.

I think I had used up a couple of lives by now but was once again challenged.  I really found out what I was "made of" when I was diagnosed with Cancer 3 years ago.  Not exactly what  a 35 year old women expects to hear, "We removed the tumor and it IS CANCER".  blah, blah, blah, blah...I didn't hear anything after that.  I was diagnosed with Burkitt's Lymphoma, a childhood cancer that was aggressive and left untreated, would have killed me in less than 6 months.  I underwent almost 5 months of chemotherapy and lived in a isolated 10x10 hospital room.  I can still smell the cleaning solutions they used,  hear the footsteps of the nurses in the hallways and remember the feeling of complete freedom as my husband wheeled me out of the hospital as fast he could, when I got the okay to return home.

Three years later, I am healthy and livin' life!  I have reason to love the life I have and look forward to sharing more with you in my future blogs.  I hope you stick around and follow me...I promise I won't bore you!

Marla