2017 A Year of fun, sacrifice, and love

2017 began with a fun night with Jordan's parents.

Which was super fun!

In March I had surgery to put in a Sub Q- ICD It's a defibrillator that goes inside the body. So if my heart ever has any palpitations or stops it will shock me right back to normal life (whatever that is).

Apparently, when I come out of being sedated I get angry. That's what Jordan says.

  Then it was finally time for our wonderful cruise to the BAHAMAS!!!!

We set sail on the Carnival Dream out of New Orleans at the end of at the beginning of April. (This was after an EXTREMELY LONG DRIVE.

 The sunset was so romantic!

We went to Key West, Florida; Freeport, Bahamas; and Nassau, Bahamas where we rode the Leap of Faith water slide... I might have died and come back to life.

We had so much fun on the cruise coming back to normal life was super hard!

Then in May something crazy happened... I TURNED 30! WHOA! And Jordan made it the best night ever! He took me to the melting pot! It was so awesome, and it made looking to the next decade in my life a bit more fun.

Then we began to approach the summer which brought our anniversary! 

I can't believe it's been a year, and yet I also can't believe it's only been a year. It feels like we've been together forever. Which we have since we were married in the temple. I'm eternally grateful for this wonderful man.

As the year went on I began to find out more and more that having a child right now would kill me, and accepting that fact is hard. My goal over the next year or two is to try and lose 100lbs. I'm grateful I have Jordan to help me through every day. He truly is my eternal hero.

We're grateful to all our friends and family and we're excited to see what 2018 will bring for us and all around us. SO YET AGAIN HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE LARRABEES!

Spiritual Guidance

     Since the news of my heart, and how much it can affect pregnancy for us I have been relying heavily on my Heavenly Father and his guidance for me. Some days I still want to cry, and other days I want to rejoice in the blessings I do have. Some days are rough and some days are heavenly. I've been blessed in some ways that I have been able to connect with some people on a spiritual level (even at work). One instance that happened recently was when I was talking with my reading aid. She is wonderful, and truly an angel to me. I told her about the news I received from my cardiologist and she just poured her heart out to me, and told me about her circumstances when she was younger. I immediately felt like the Lord had given me a friend that I could rely on for life. The Lord has also blessed me with family and many friends who have been understanding.

A Longing Heart

I've been debating on writing posts about myself because I'm afraid that I'll offend someone, and that is the last thing I want to do. But if I ignore my own heart ache and make myself numb to how I feel I will just become bitter over time, and I will not appreciate my current blessings. 

Let's go back to June... in June I had a normal echo cardiogram (ultrasound on my heart). My Ejection Fraction was 15%... LOWER than a year ago. I talked with my cardiologist and he scheduled me for a metabolic stress test... which I had on August 15th. The day before I went back to school. First they measure how you breathe and you have to put your mouth around this huge tube and breathe into it... I was able to do it really well once and then I gagged each time after... I actually gagged so bad I vomited. Then they hook you up to a machine and you breathe while walking on a treadmill and they slowly incline you... they are basically measuring your heart... and what type of stress it can take. I did good on this, but not great. On Thursday, September 21st I went to see my cardiologist again to talk to him about this test and about pregnancy... to this point I have had to be on birth control because my heart is so weak that pregnancy is not an option for me. We discussed this, and how my current birth control has made me gain some water weight and that I am concerned about this.

Well, let me first tell you what was said about pregnancy; my cardiologist is very blunt with me, (which I love!) and he told me that with the way my heart currently functions I have a 40-60% chance if I get pregnant that I or my fetus could die. That realization hits pretty hard for me and Jordan. We know we want a child of our own and Heavenly Father has promised us one in time. So hearing this... shattered us. Now, every time I go in to see my cardiologist I ask about pregnancy, but there was something different having Jordan there and having him hear it too.

I'll come back to that feeling, but I want to tell about how the doctors and nurses at IMC are amazing and they want me to find a high risk obgyn to discuss birth control and all my options for a family. I truly appreciate that they are so willing to talk to me and work with me. The Doctors are trying everything they can to improve my health. Even going as far as having me slowly increase certain medicine dosages to figure out if that will help.

Now, back to the fact of death if I were to get pregnant...
I have so many feelings going through me between the two biggest of me being thankful that my doctors care about me enough to not let me hurt me or an unborn child and anger of the fact that it is not fair that these people I see that I see that don't treat a child with the respect they deserve, or people that have been married way shorter time than I. Now, let me make it clear... I don't really hate any of these people and I'm not angry at them. I'm just hurt. I'm hurt that I can't have what I want so much, and that is to raise a wonderful young child of God as my parents raised me in the Gospel. I can't give my mother-in-law a grandchild even though I know she'd be the best grandma ever! I can't make my husband a father even though I know he'd be wonderful at that! I can't fulfill all my covenants that I made with God the day I was married to multiply and replenish the earth... I CAN'T! I often will tell my students not to say I can't, but to instead say I can do hard things. However, this is something I truly can't do. I'm not allowed to. If I did I could harm a life. I am trying super super hard to not be angry with Heavenly Father because He has promised me blessings, and I know in time those blessings will come, but I have to be patient. As I'm writing this and ranting about this I also have thoughts about how this will make it to where Jordan and I can save the money to buy a home, and be with each other, and make a wonderful place for a future child. For those that don't know the type of cardiomyopathy I have is genetic. There is a high risk of no matter what happens I could give it to a child. That makes my journey even rougher. I know that things will come in time, but that doesn't make the pain any easier... the knowledge that there is a child out there waiting to call me mom. The knowledge that good things will come. It doesn't make that pain I feel go away.
I sit in silence at church. I sit in silence at work. Where in both places I'm surrounded by children. I get to points where I cry to myself because I feel like I've failed at being good to my body to help my future child. Like it's my fault I never asked a doctor to scan my heart until it was almost too late. I want to blame myself, but I know that won't help me either. I pray at night to be able to sleep through the night and not be gasping for air or not have my device shock me (still haven't had any shocks). I pray to be blessed with something and be okay. I pray that Heavenly Father will help me and not let Satan drag me down. I pray for all these things because I know I need my faith more now than ever before.

I want to apologize to all of you that have read this far, and also thank you for reading as I poured my heart out. I ask for prayers and for words of encouragement along this hard journey that Jordan and I are on.

All my love,
Frances

One year as a heart patient

One year ago I was in the hospital diagnosed with congestive heart failure... after tons of tests we found out that I have cardiomyopathy, and will be a heart patient most likely for the rest of my life. In the past year Jordan an I were married, and I received a defibrillator in my body. I'm on my way to becoming healthier. Currently we can't have children, but we have faith that one day that dream will become a reality for us. Here are so pictures from this past year of our journey.

when I was in the hospital

when I was in the hospital

when I was in the hospital

coming back after surgery

our cruise

our cruise

My 30th birthday

our wedding day

our wedding day

A child's heart

LVNC Cardiomyopathy


This isn't a post about an actual child's heart, but instead a post about my condition. My heart is weak. The only way I can make it stronger is maybe exercise, but that's not guaranteed. Above is a link about my exact condition. The kicker to it all is that I've discovered signs of this particular condition on both my mom and dad's sides. It all goes back to my third great grandmother on both sides. I guess the biggest reason I'm writing this post is to help others be warned. When I was a child I fainted, or was out of breath quite often. My mom would take me to the doctor and they would always attribute it to something else. I hated that. In other words I'm wanting parents everywhere to understand that it is very very very very important to make doctors aware when your child complains of not feeling well that it could be more than just asthma or sinuses. My mom worked so hard to get doctors to understand, but they always blew her off. I also feel that all attributes to how far we've come in medicine in the past several years. Well, here's the deal of all of it... because my ejection fraction is so low at the moment I am not allowed to have kids right now... that means at least another year of going to the doctor for a birth control shot. Which is a scary thing in and of itself. Also, that means to me that if we are able to have a child we may only have one.


I guess the biggest thing I ask is if you feel like your heart is being weird, or you're running out of breath... get your heart checked! And get your children's hearts checked!