In the summer of 2016, I was emotionally devastated by the news that my dear friend Milly had passed away from Mitochondrial Disease. I wanted to honor my friend in some way. Milly had a YouTube channel and posted videos about her various challenges and medical conditions. I thought about creating a YouTube channel in her memory, but who am I to create videos? I did not have a laptop or any way to film myself. So, I decided to deal with my grief by creating this blog.
For 4.5 years, I wrote two blog posts a week. It was a tremendous blessing to record my life and to share with my family and friends my our struggles. Earlier this year, I decided to cut back the number of blog posts to just once a week. Early in 2021, I launched a personal YouTube channel. I traded one blog post a week for one YouTube video. I found it rather ironic that I now am doing YouTube videos just like Milly.
When this blog was started on August 1, 2016, I could never have imagined where my health would take me. About two weeks after writing my first blog post, my breathing abruptly became severe. For the next four months I struggled to breathe. In December 2016, I was started on non-invasive ventilation. On May 3, 2017, I had an urgent tracheostomy procedure to get a tracheostomy tube and be started on invasive ventilation. From there, my health has waxed and waned. My life has been fraught with frequent trips to the emergency department and too many days as a patient at the hospital. And through it all, I have had this blog and had the endless support of so many.
I sincerely thank each and every one of you for all your support. I am graceful your love and encouragement has helped me through some dark times. Thank you for turning a time of mourning into one of joy and gladness.
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