Hello everyone... this is Monica, Marty's wife. It has been such a long time since he has posted anything, I thought I would help out a little bit. Usually he dictates, and I type, but not tonight. We Hope that everyone had a nice Christmas and New Year. Ours was pretty uneventful. We did get to watch Jonathan open his Christmas gifts via Skype, very different, but at least we got to see him.
Marty is doing pretty good, just trying to keep healthy and live life. He is having some rollercoaster blood pressures that are not cooperating with the medications. This is keeping him home more than usual, he doesn't want to get light headed or dizzy if he is out. But other than that, his transpant clinics, lungs, breathing and everything else is going well.
Yesterday we went to Tempe Town Lake, they had a fishing thing going on. There were community organizations that had booths set up giving out information. The reason we went is to show support for Donate Life Arizona. It was pretty encouraging to meet the three people working at the booth. Two were a married couple, she is a 10 year double lung transplant survivor. The other lady is the mother of a young man who was an organ donor, her son died as a young adult. She was so encouraging to us, and even had a look of happiness and joy on her face, at meeting another "transplant person" It just took me off guard. I have never knowingly met a family member of a donor. I was not expecting for Marty and I to have the reaction that we did. As we walked away from the booth, we both were a bit quiet and had tears in our eyes. God has truly been so good to us though this whole experience. He has placed so many wonderful people into our lives, so many people we would have never gotten the oportunity to meet.
Some other things have happened to bring the reality of how precious life is into our lives. A dear lady, who may not even know how much she and her husband have been a support and encouragement to us, lost her husband this past month. We met them though St. Josephs Transplant Support group, We are so thankful for the wonderful family we have there. The reality of how precious life is, has become so real to both of us already in this new year.
Oh, I kind of got off track with the rest of our fishing day... As we were walking around looking at things, Marty heard drums. For those of you who don't know, Marty plays the drums and hasn't really gotten back into it since the transplant. Well, that changed yesterday. The drums he heard were from a drum circle, set up as part of one of the informational booths. He looked at me and said,"do you mind if I join in?" He ended up playing different drums for about 30 minutes. I have not seen him smile and look that happy in a LONG time. I was having so much fun watching him have fun. It was great. God had us be there, originally just for the Donate Life Booth, but also blessed Marty with playing the drums again. What a great day. Maybe a little too much being in the sun though.....but worth it.
