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An Update: Heather Lindsay McCabe, A Little Miracle: Her Story Continues by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Rated "G" by the Author.
The little baby, once doomed to die, is now six months old and is thriving, much to the delight of her mother, Hillary. Hillary has also fallen in love, and she is now engaged to be married.
I am so blessed!
Every time I look at the sweet little face of my baby girl, Heather Lindsay, I can't help but to get tears of joy in my eyes, and also thank God for bringing her out of the valley, when she was so sick with her heart.
As you may remember, Heather Lindsay was born with a rare and usually fatal heart defect, Epstein's Anomaly, where she wasn't getting enough in the way of blood or oxygen to her heart, and because of it, her heart was enlarged to three times its normal size, and she was so very sick. For a while, we didn't think she'd make it, but by the Grace of a Loving God, she did, and now, as she nears her seventh month here on this earth, she continues to do very well.
She still sees the heart specialist every month and get regular checkups, and she also takes medications prior to any medical test or precedure she may have to undergo or if she gets sick; but other than that, she is a normal, happy baby who is making up for lost time for when she was so sick in the hospital.
Heather is now starting to crawl, and I have had to babyproof the house, but it is a small price to pay for I nearly lost her, and now, as she continues to grow and develop, I am at once enchanted and delighted with her. She is a very happy baby who giggles constantly, and s he is a little charmer with her halo of soft, baby-fine blonde curls, huge, sparkling eyes that miss very little, and chubby, dimpled cheeks. It is so hard to believe tht this healthy, happy baby was once lying in a hospital bed, near death, in the NICU, hooked up to a sea of tubes and monitors, and her body bloated from a combination of medications and fluids, looking for all the world as though she was going to die at any given moment. Her body was, as I remember correctly, blue, constantly blue, and I cried more those first uncertain weeks and months than I did when my brother, Ian, died at the age of four from a fall out of a treehouse when we were kids; and I was terrified at the thought of losing Heather, too.
Heather is my world, my life, and she continues to do well as I write this down. She is a Little Miracle of God's, and now I take her everywhere; and people are always delighted with her. They are amazed that Heather has survived such a devastating and deadly heart ailment, and when I show them the pictures of Heather when she was in the hospital, they can't believe it. She looks completely different, and the only "marks" left of her long, tortuous ordeal in the hospital are some small scars made from when she had the tubes in her chest, arms, legs, and tummy. Otherwise, she is as healthy as can be, and she is developing right on schedule.
And here's more good news: I am ENGAGED! I am engaged to a wonderful man I met while visiting Heather at the hospital, and his name is Gunther. Gunther Olssen. He was born in Finland, and he came to America as a small child; and he is one year older than me. I first met Gunther while I was at the hospital (at the time, he was visiting his mother) when Heather was so sick; and he was there for me when things didn't look good. He was very supportive, and he offered me comfort and encouragement when I needed it the most. I fell in love with Gunther, and he fell in love with me; and he fell in love with my daughter, even when she was so sick. Now we are engaged; he asked me to marry him back in April, and of course, I accepted; and now we have since set a wedding date, tentatively scheduled for late December, just before Christmastime. So Heather will have a father figure in her life, and right now I couldn't be happier than I am at the present time!
These song lyrics and art are tales, tides and twinkling lights - tunes telling stories of warmth and sun, city and sand, paths that lead, and the coins we can keep in the Karma Bank. Spirit's been bypassed for sorrow, dreaming of a better tomorrow .
