I am writing this as any  ode to my body, my mind and most specifically my heart. Seven years ago I had my aorta replaced, it was a process of 14 months of things going wrong to get to that point. Most people take their birthday as a time to reflect, for me it’s my aortaversary (obviously my own coined term) it’s a very happy day for me, I take this time to check in and appreciate my body.
It's so crazy how light my scar is now, they really did a good job 
Seven years for me is a really big milestone, it’s a time frame I set out in my mind when my recovery was really hard, that in 7 years I would be so far away from the pain I was currently in. And I was right. 2 years post-OP I was still very emotionally vulnerable and battling with the whole experience. After a few more I could finally see it as a good experience, a huge influence as it always will be. Now 7 years later I am grateful for the whole mess of a thing. I learned so much about resilience, I never knew how tough I was until this happened, and although it was incredibly difficult emotionally I found ways to get past it and keep my light.

So here is my love letter to my body who no matter what let’s me move, seven years ago I couldn’t walk to the end of the block without being winded. I kick box 2x a week, lift weights 2x a week, run 2x, and play soccer. Dear body you are f ucking magnificent, I promise to take care of you always. I promise to allow you rest when you need it more, to listen to you and push you.


Today I’m looking at re setting where I’m at based on this, my health has always been important to me, my body since then has been my priority. I’ve talked about it a lot this year but I need to re focus on my self care, taking downtime, and my mental health. It’s funny that I can get so caught up in the physical health and forget about self care, my heart needs to be worked but it also needs downtime to recover and not be working overtime always. So happy aortaversary heart, I took the day off so I could do any little thin my heart desired and tomorrow we’re going to escape to the mountains!