Peter’s second transplant anniversary was yesterday.  Two years–so fast, yet so slow. We are so thankful to our donor family!  We actually have had two donors–the heart donor two years ago, of course.  But then also when Peter had his first open-heart surgery at 4 weeks old, a donor valve was used to replace his diseased aortic valve, and that valve came from a flgrieving family as well. He of course doesn’t have that valve anymore but we are grateful to that family as well.  

I wrote this letter to Peter on his second transplant-iversary. I’ve also posted pics over on caringbridge: https://caringbridge.org/visit/peterhernandez/journal/view/id/603b1215f33a093d78edc462

Two years ago our lives looked so different. Our reality seemed so much more precarious.

Two years ago, you were living in a hospital three hours from home with equipment supporting your heart function, sustaining you until your long-awaited transplant.

Two years ago, we received a call that forever changed your life and our lives. The aftermath of a call that shattered another family.

Two years ago, we said goodbye to you, for while a heart transplant was what we had hoped and prayed about, we were also anxiously aware that in that operating room, you would be gone, for a time. Your tired, battered, sick heart stopped, removed, discarded. Machines sustaining your life, until the new, healthy heart was sutured in, reminded of its job by with jolts electricity, returning life to your body. A heart with its own rhythm. His rhythm.

We knew you would come back different, new. Undone and then reborn. A new heart transplanted into a stunted body yearning to thrive. A renewed life transplanted beside streams of hope.

And ever since then you have grown and loved life, and we have loved our life with you. You have faced challenges of which we never dreamed. And you have courageously conquered. And yet you don’t know how hard you have worked, how much you have achieved and endured, how far you have come. You have simply risen to each challenge, with joy, perseverance, fortitude, and strength. You are living, learning, and growing every day. Habitually making the best of every situation, taking on every challenge. Despite a young life laced with adversity, you continue to strive forward with curiosity, excitement, joy, and love.

For two years you have not regarded yourself with pity, nor do you give up or feel ashamed of the skills and milestones you struggle to meet, or the scars on your body. And I pray you never do. Your struggles have made you strong and brave. Your scars are evidence of survival, of battle, of the Lord’s blessing on your life–a life now lived for two.

Two years. We are ineffably marveling, ceaselessly thankful, inexorably grateful.
@iamcmhernandez
#CHDVoice #TransplantWarrior #donatelife