Posted in Boston, Energy for Life, Friends, Gift of life, Hope, Hospital life, Immune Deficiency, Keith, Legislation, mito, Monthly Dose of Hope, Tutoring, umdf, Vampires on 9 August 2010| 2 Comments »
While tutoring last week, we took a trip to the Museum of Science. While there, we spent quite a bit of time in the Theater of Electricity. T seemed so enthusiastic about the technology that I joked she could be an engineer when she grew up.
“No. I want to be something else.”
“Well, what do you want to do when you grow up?”
“I want to cure mitochondrial disease.”
I do, too.
Posted in At the Doctor's, Boston, Friends, Keith, mito, Monthly Dose of Hope, Sleep on 7 August 2010| 1 Comment »
The past few days have been action-packed for the Hertzog-Merrill household. As I had mentioned before, we spent Saturday at the first “Monthly Dose of Hope” with other mito families. This is incredibly important to us – and our emotional health – as we spend the entire afternoon celebrating life with people who truly understand our life. While our family and friends have been incredibly supportive and understanding, but it’s a different support from those that are living our life, dealing with the hospitals and doctors and the terminal nature of the disease. These families provide a form of support that no one else can replicate. At the party, we got to meet so many wonderful families and individuals and got to visit with some of our friends – including the newest addition to our “family,” Sophie! It was a peaceful day where we didn’t once have to explain anything, everyone just knew.
Saturday afternoon, however, totally wiped me out. In order to fully recover, I slept over 15 hours on Sunday. This isn’t too out of the blue for me, but it doesn’t happen everyday, either. Socializing takes work and energy for me; sleep is really the only way to replenish my energy. We ended up staying over at the Bush/Dalton house Sunday and Monday nights so we could watch the kids early the following mornings. It turns out that I’m only good for a few hours of babysitting when I’ve had a big weekend so I headed off to snooze each afternoon while Keith (aka “the most amazing husband in the world”) took up the post of #1 sitter. He rocks. Seriously. The kids got to swim, go to the park, play Wii, and get some homework done while I took my naps.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost
Still Miles to Go 