The Beginning

I was at a trade show for work, 600 miles away when I got the phone call.  Dana was calling to tell me the news from a scan done at the Women's Center in Charlotte.  It was debilitating.  Panic and numbness ensued ...we had read this book before and it sucked, I never wanted to even look at the book cover again.  

Our child who was around 24 weeks old had been diagnosed with a congenital heart defect...

Seems like it was just yesterday we started an email chain talking about Mom having to battle breast cancer, or creating a blog for Dana's brain surgeries for her Cavernous Angioma......or maybe it feels like just yesterday we started with Porter's (my nephew) own journey with having a congenital heart defect.  

Regardless of what it all felt like at the time, I stood in the middle of a convention center 600 miles from home staring into the nothingness of it all considering if it was possible this was a dream or not.  Due to the previous events in our lives and knowing how cruel life can be, i knew it was too easy for this all to be a dream.  

Life is hard and requires good work, mother earth giveth and she taketh away.  You have to be able to see the bad in this world, in order to appreciate and respect the good in this world.  Too often we all get wrapped up in the day to day BS of needing material items, showcasing & one upping on social networking, taking our kids for granted, holding a grudge on a family member/friend.  When a tramadic event occurs, all of those unimportant things fall by the waysides and a few things remain standing like family and friends.

This is our story, these are our unfiltered thoughts, published for those family and friends wanting to be in loop as we go through this event.  It's time suit up your armor and paint your war faces ---- shit is about to get real, again.

I figure the easiest thing to do is bring everyone up to speed with the email we broadcast out and then start from there.

Baby Degan - 19 weeks old