Alice Dean

This is my grandmother - Maw Maw is actually her name. She also goes by Alice Dean but, honestly, I had no idea who people were talking about when I heard that name for years. Probably the same reason Tay looked at me in wonder when she was about 4 years old upon learning my legal name was not "Mommy."

Maw Maw and I have always been really close and, in fact, even after we moved to Texas I would return each summer and spend the entire break with her. She and I are a lot alike. We tell it like it is, blow up quickly and recover immediately, don't carry grudges and aren't afraid to voice our opinion. We also love our family deeply and would do anything they needed.

Tay spent a week with her last summer and enjoyed the same experience with Maw Maw. It was surreal. And awesome. She's planning to go back this summer as well.

One amusing thing is that Maw Maw told me for YEARS that she was 5'7" so I thought I was super tall because I was taller than she is. Imagine my surprise upon learning that I was only 5'2" and someone had mislead me for many moons.

Anyway, Maw Maw had rheumatic fever as a child and has a horrible family history of heart problems. She has never had any of her own, though, until a few months ago when a routine EKG detected aortic stenosis. She saw a cardiologist who indicated it was not severe enough to treat but did advise her to have a stress test if she had any surgery planned....a few weeks later, her orthopedic doctor found that she had a torn miniscus so she had the stress test, which indicated three areas of blockage.

Today my mom is with Maw Maw in Louisiana and she had three stints placed as she had 90% blockage in those three indicated areas. The doctor told my mom she would have never made it off the table if she had gone ahead with knee surgery without intervention.

Can I just tell you that I'm feeling very grateful to our God right now because it would have ROCKED MY WORLD to lose my grandmother. While I know all of our days here are numbered, it just really would have been such a shock. My grandfather passed away almost 9 years ago but he had been ill for quite some time and it was a progressive sort of thing that gave all of us time to work through before the time actually came.

I am so very thankful that her doctors had the foresight to schedule this procedure first. Amen.