Time to Thrive

I have a tendency towards over-sized sweaters and combat boots. I drink copious, nauseating amounts of coffee and in fact, if you sliced me open, would bleed espresso. I call rain "writing weather" and have been known to wear long johns in July heat waves. Winters in Utah leave me manic and sleepless, summers leave me sticky and cranky.

Do you know what happened when the search for the best asthma air in the U.S. began and turned up with Seattle, Washington in the number two spot? I choked. I literally choked on my white chocolate mocha and dribbled it down my chin and onto my sweater.

On October 1st, we're moving away. Onward to the land of rain and coffee, where sudden exposure to cold air is less than likely, inversion is unheard of and rain in a constant sprinkle, 300 days a year.

Last winter was hard. Hospital stays blur together in a haze of thick black coffee and monitors and half-sleep. Terms and triggers float through a numb mind; sudden exposure to cold air,viruses, oral steroids, inhalers, duo-neb treatments. Kade was poked, held down for suction treatments, tested for cystic fibrosis, hooked up to oxygen and forced through breathing treatments. Veins were blown, noses were bloody and answers were few and far between. The term most familiar, made a dull and aching home in my chest: failure to thrive. It's scribbled across most of Kade's medical records. Knowing my son, you could shake your head at this. Kade thrives. My baby loves life, he teaches us joy and love. He is fantastically silly, his giggles erupting an entire room into a ball of light.

It's time now, for his health to thrive as much as he does.

Things are going to be hard and different. But they're also about to be wonderful and adventurous and new. We're ready to thrive, as a family.
It's time.