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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.

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We’ve had a relatively busy week. We spent the last four days driving into Boston for various reasons. This is not usually the norm. I usually go in about 3 times a week to meet with tutees and go to various medical appointments; Keith goes in to Waltham 2-3 times a week. This week just happened to be “one of those weeks”…

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I was recently told that people were worried about me. After initial confusion – followed by slight flattery – I realized why: I suck at communication. People only hear when things are bad (because Keith calls) and I fail to communicate that – most days – I’m doing just fine. So here we are. Because I’m not likely going to get any better at communicating regularly (just being honest!) and I do really want to keep everyone informed, I started a new blog. I’m hoping that through this page, I can keep you – my family and friends – updated on our life – the good and the bad. I want you all to realize that most of our life is pretty normal; we work, play, and enjoy life. We might, however, do it a little differently. Also, I’m hoping that, through writing, I can bring some awareness to mitochondrial disease and some of the other issues we face. Please feel free to pass on my writings as part of my goal in this blog is to open a window into living life with a mitochondrial disease – and a smile!

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