We’re blessed to have Jennifer from Just Jennifer here today. Jen is someone that I’ve always enjoyed chatting with on Twitter and Facebook, but recently, it’s become a little more personal. She’s going through a really hard time right now, but her strength is inspiring. She’s even found a way to look on the bright side lately, which is not easy to do for someone in her circumstances. Read on to see what I’m talking about.
Things have changed in my world since Greta asked me to write for this series. Since she’s a good bloggy friend to me, she knows what’s been going on and asked if I wanted to hold off. I told her this is probably a perfect time to write a post about expectations.

Before finding out how compromised my husband’s heart is, I probably would have written about how expectations can set you up for disappointment. Probably also about the expectations we all have before becoming parents.

But now what’s on my mind are the expectations I do or do not have for the rest of my husband’s life.

Mark. That’s my beloved. I met him shortly after turning 20, so he has been a part of my entire adult life. We have been together for almost 18 years. He is the proverbial “love of my life” and “soul mate”. I absolutely believe we were brought together for reasons beyond our comprehension.

Mark has Type 1 Diabetes which has caused many complications, including kidney failure. His kidneys were on their way out when we met, and just a year into our relationship they failed and he went on dialysis. However, just six months later, he received a kidney and pancreas transplant. A year after that, we were officially engaged to be married, and one more year later, we tied the knot.

The transplanted organs lasted for almost six years, and in that time we got married and had our first child, our millennium baby. When she was 18 months old, Mark’s transplant rejected and he had to go back on dialysis and insulin. This was SO hard, not just because of the disappointment of the loss of Mark’s good health, but also because my attentions now had to be divided between him and our daughter. Also, my expectations for how our lives would play out changed.

I had always wanted at least 2 children, and I expected I’d have them, but it took until our daughter was almost 5 for me to get past my fears in order to try for our second. I had to decide to live life the way I wanted to, in spite of what might or could happen in the future. Thankfully, we were blessed with a baby boy at the beginning of 2006.

However, by this time Mark was starting to have heart problems. Two years later, on Christmas Day, he had his first heart attack. Within another two years, he had his second heart attack, which necessitated double bypass surgery, and his heart stopped three times that night, scaring the Hell out of me!

When he had bypass, I naively assumed his heart would be good-to-go for many more years. I expected it. But just a year and a half later, on the first of this month, I learned that is not to be. Mark has congestive heart failure, with a side of atrial fibrillation.

In the ten years he has been on dialysis, I have been expecting that I will outlive my husband. It’s just logical, all things considered. Even still, I had the hope that Mark would live long enough to see our kids grow up. Now I expect he won’t. I mean, I thought I was losing him just last week. We discussed end-of-life issues, including whether or not to sign a DNR and hospice care. These are things I did not expect on March 1st, but were my reality by March 5th.

Mark has rallied and I got to bring him home. Medication seems to be helping him right now, but I have no clue what to expect from here on out. His heart is functioning at about 25%.

Actually, I think all expectations for the future have completely flown out the window at this point. It’s a very odd place to be in where you are continuing to LIVE as best you can, while also preparing for death. The ONLY thing I think I can expect, is that Mark will squeeze every last drop out of life that he can.
Jennifer’s Husband, Mark

Thank you so much, Jennifer, for spilling it all. You’re such an inspiration.

(We’re linking up with Yeah Write today!)

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