day 4-Cozzens, Sparks and Tui :)

Because of my friends being here I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep last night, I think I needed it. Abby had an okay night. She did have a fever and that worried the nurses a little bit, but me a lot! It was monitored during the night and they gave her some antibiotics. She got some good sleep during the night too, but it's hard to sleep when the nurses are coming in at least every hour to check on her. I finally caved a little early this morning and had a breakdown. I just started crying and couldn't stop. Cozzens and Les helped me through and let me know that it was okay, maybe it needed to happen because after I settled down a little, I fell asleep again, probably from exhaustion. It's such a roller coaster, you go from feeling completely picked on and sorry for yourself to mad at the world to okay we can do this to why even try to we'll be okay to remembering to be grateful she's even with us then back to feeling sorry for myself. I never quite know what I'll be feeling!
At 5:00 they came in to take some more blood tests on Abby to rule out an infection. Then she had to get an xray to check out how her lungs were doing. When we were in the ICU, the xray tech would come to us, but since we aren't there anymore, we had to go to the xray room. This was good because it got Abby up and out of bed. The nurses and I had to wheel her in a wheel chair, with a cart with all of her IV and other tubes and plugs connected, and then my job was pushing the oxygen tank. I'm such a spaz at pushing that tank! It's harder to steer than you think and I kept getting in the way of the wheelchair. Abby let me know that I wasn't very good at it. While we were waiting for her xray, some nurses pulled up pushing a crib. There was the cutest, little 7 month old baby in it waiting for their chest xray. I was trying to talk to her, her name was Tess, but I couldn't get her to smile, she just stared at me with her pretty eyes. I'm usually a pro a making babies smile! It was so sad to me because the nurse said that they can't ever get her to smile, ever. It broke my heart to hear this, and it just made me be grateful that we didn't have to start dealing with this when Abby was a baby. She had almost 12 carefree, happy years, without having to worry about anything! Things will be a little harder now, she'll always have a lot more to worry about.
The doctors then came by to make their rounds. The head transplant doctor, Dr. Molena, talked to me a little about things. They think that Abby is doing really well and that we might be able to leave the hospital next week some time. I have mixed thoughts about this though. Now I'll have to decided where we go from here. I've had a lot of offers, but I just don't know. I don't want to make this decision, but I better do it soon so they can prepare for us. It will be nice for Abby to leave the hospital, but then it puts a lot more responsibility on me, which I don't feel like I'm ready for. I'm having a hard time even reminding myself to get a drink, how am I going to be able to be in charge of taking care of Abby too? Maybe by then I'll be ready to. Abby really perked up today, she started being really sassy too! It was awesome. Brittany took over the head nurse position, she does Abby's hair, helps her to get her bath, insists on helping her eat, we have to keep track of what Abby's eating-Britt makes a very thorough list. The nurses laugh because today the list said: one sweedish fish, one bite of cheese, two ramen noodles, 2 bites of slushy, and one spoonful of smoothy. Abby gets to pick what she wants to eat from a room service menu. Then we call them and they'll bring the food up to her, if she doesn't like it, they'll bring us something else. I forced Abby to go through the menu and choose something for dinner, her choice.......grapes and waffles!!! Oh, what a funny kid! One time they brought her tray up with a little, red, stretchy guy on it. It's great because my friends made it into a ninja! Abby loved it. Britt has done an awesome job, but Abby thinks it's funny to keep saying, "Britt, you're a bad nurse!" then they just laugh.
We had a lot less doctors today, which was nice for me so I could just process everything for a bit without being given more to think about. That's one of the hardest thing right now. My and mind is so full of things I need to remember, things I need to do, lists of what they've told me, things I haven't taken care of at home yet, things that I need to make a decision on, just so many things, it's making me a little crazy. It sounds weird, but I'm tired of thinking!! Abby had another session with the rehab team to work on her memory. She did so much better! I think she will fully recover from this eventually, in the meantime, it's actually a little funny and we just have to laugh...it's good to have something to laugh about. It's great because she doesn't need that much to keep her busy right now, because she can just keep doing the same things over and over again, because she forgets! Abby was totally joking with the rehab doc. They would show her these little cards and ask what pictures were on them. Abby kept making fun of the pictures, the doc was laughing. Her creative, spunky side was really coming through and I think she ended up making the doc really have to think about what the pictures were supposed to be! Abby is too smart for her own good, I'm pretty sure the doctor left thinking that she was the one being tested not doing the testing! It's nice for me to have Abby ask the same questions over and over again because then I don't have to think as much! We'll have to continue to monitor this for a long time....but her rehab team is awesome!
We love visitors and I want people to come visit if they can! It's good for Abby, the kids, and me! We have always been a family that love people being around us, so don't ever feel like you'll be in the way here, we need you. Yesterday everyone seemed to come at the same time, this is a list of people that were all here at once: Deedee, Mina, Brynn, Jeff, Mel, Zach, Josh, jacob(these are abby's cousins and aunts and uncles), Tui, Les, Cozzens, gma, gpa, britt, brock, me, Marianne from the ward and her sister, and Cammeron Murdock and his wife and cute little boy (more on this later). Holy cow, it was crazy, but then they all left at about 5:00 and we didn't have anyone the rest of the night. So please come visit if you can!! Abby loved visiting with Murdock, for some reason something that has stuck in her head is that Murdock helped to save her life. It was cute to see them sit and talk to each other and I loved that he wrote out what happened and his thoughts and feelings about it and gave it to Abby. This is something she'll always be able to read and treasure. The hardest part of the day for me was when my friends had to leave. I'm just grateful they could come up here, I know it was hard for them to leave their kids and families at home to come see us, but it sure made a difference to all of us. Thanks friends, you raised our spirits and helped me be able to cope a little better. I missed them the second they left, but I understand too.
When everyone else left, Britt decided she wanted to stay the night with us at the hospital. My favorite comment of the day was when she said, "between my short-term memory loss sister, and my sleep-deprived mom, it's going to be a long, long night!!" We decided to get Abby out of her bed and in a wheel chair to take her for a walk. It was great for all of us. We even got to go outside in this garden area, it was pretty because you can look out over all of Salt Lake. It felt good to get some fresh air. Then the greatest thing, we found a piano that Abby could play. We moved her wheel chair over next to it, there was hymn book on it, we opened to a page and she started to play-it just happened to be the song, "I know that my Redeemer lives!" She could only use her right hand because her left hand still has to stay still because the defibbrilator, but it sounded so awesome! She sat and played for about a half hour and then was too tired. But the whole rest of the night, she kept asking when she go back to play again. I think we'll be spending some time there today for sure, I wish I had her piano books for her.
One really good thing today was when my uncle Jeff and cousin Paul gave abby and I blessings today. The perfect things were said, I don't think it could have been any better. I'm so glad I have people around to us in all of our needs. I did feel better and stronger after my blessing. The rest of the night was spent organizing our cards and things, it's so great for all of us to see the support and love we're getting, it really helps! It's now Sunday morning, and I think we're ready for another day. For those friends of mine that are playing bad cop-I slept from 9:30-12:00 last night, that's good, and I just ate a whole banana and haven't thrown it up yet. But there is still a lot of recovery to do, I know because Abby asked for some grapes at 6:00 this morning. I went downstairs to get her some and when I got to the cafeteria I saw the sign that said it didn't open until 6:30, I got so frustrated. Then I saw a kiosk to buy a newspaper, so I went to buy one and I didn't have any change or 1 dollar bills in my pocket, just these two little things made me cry. Stupid huh? just little things, but they should be the easy things, and they weren't! Anyway, we'll just keep taking it one day a time. I sure do love this little girl and she is so dang tough. When they took out her chest tube today, they got her all ready for the pain, and she didn't even flinch, she said it was easy! Tough kid that's for sure. I did get the dreaded question from her today, "Why is this happening to me?" this is one that I'm still struggling with myself and couldn't answer. I can't make sense of that either and it's probably a question we'll be asking for a long time.
Thanks again everyone for keeping us in your thoughts. We're a strong family and somehow we will get through this!