May 28th-Uno Schmuno

I woke up today thinking, "I really don't want to do this again today!" The days are getting so repetitive, it just seems like the same thing over and over again. At least we have different visitors each day, that does make it better.....but the routine is the same. Today is kind of depressing though. Brock will be heading back to St. George tonight for football camp, remember to take care of him for me......he needs people to be around him keeping his spirits up and reassuring him that things will be okay. My dad will be heading back with him too. My friends left yesterday, this was hard for me, I need them here, but I know they can't stay. I just have to be grateful for the time when they are here, but I wish I knew we had a time scheduled when they're coming back....that would make me feel better. They woke Abby up at 4:30 to take blood again today, the first time the IV tech stuck a needle in her arm, she missed the vein, but spent lots of time wiggling it around trying to find it. Then she just pulled it out and said, "okay, let's try the other arm now!" Abby gave her the other arm and then just looked at me like why is this happening to me?? It broke my heart. I just wish it was a normal Sunday, and we were HOME, together, getting ready to go to church and thinking of trivial things like what we should have for breakfast. Instead, I'll pick something from the hospitality cart, and then I probably won't eat it anyway! Like I said, Kind of repetitive. Maybe we'll be able to to the church services they have here in the hospital. You would all be jealous, it only lasts 30 minutes! I heard there are only 2 speakers and they each speak for only 10 minutes, now that's church :) Plus, you don't have to dress up, sweats and slippers are even appropriate, I know you're jealous. I also know we have a lot of people coming to see us today, Abby loves the conversation, especially when people realize that she's okay and they can just be normal with her. It's fun to see how excited she gets when people come in the door that aren't doctors and nurses!

Yesterday was a funny day. Ali and Cozzens made us all laugh so hard, it was awesome. We played a game that we called "Uno Shmuno," I'm not sure where the name came from, you might have to ask Britt and Brock about that! It's very similar to Uno, in fact, exactly the same, but....you say Uno Shmuno instead of just Uno. But we played with a little twist today, the loser had to do something embarrassing, that the group chose. We all laughed so hard we were crying, it felt good to laugh.....after I realized it was okay to be laughing anyway. This is how the game went:

Round 1-Brock lost and had to go to the cafe and buy drinks for all, using his own $....well he used a gift card that was given to us, kind of a cheater! I'm glad Abby didn't lose this round!
Round 2-Ali had to ask the first guy she saw in the hall for his phone #. It turned out to be a doctor named Richard. We were down the hall just giggling.....you should have seen how red her face was! Hilarious!
Round 3-Cozzens had to sing and dance to a Justin Bieber song out in the hall. It was awesome. I think she really wanted to lose this round just to have the chance to do this! You should have seen the people poking their heads out of their doors to see, and then when they saw her later in the day, they would start laughing! She was really getting into it, this was a new side of Cozzens that I haven't seen before!
Round 4-Brock.....again. Uno is not his best game! Brock had to go and talk to this life-size Spider man down in the lobby. He then had to introduce 5 people to spider man and ask the people if they wanted to talk to him for a few minutes. We just laughed! It was especially funny when a hispanic family walked by and Brock tried to use some of his amazing Spanish he's been learning in school.....they didn't know what to think, probably because they didn't know what he was saying! HA! Next time you see Brock, ask him how Spidey's doin!
Round 5-Little Cozzens had to to do a cheerleader cheer out in the hall. I taught her the, "you move to the left, you move to the right, you peel a banana, and (grunt) you take a bite...go gorilla go, go gorilla go!" cheer. It was awesome, if she only knew her left from right......Good thing that wasn't something I was supposed to teach her in math this year!

Anyway, if felt good to just laugh. We're used to doing goofy things like this, it's our normal. It also gave Brock and Britt a chance to bond with Ali and Cozz which made me feel better about sending them to St. George without me, I know that they will help them and will be a big part of their lives now. This makes me more content.

Medically speaking, Abby is still doing great, other than her sick heart. Not any changes right now, which is good. We're still just trying to regulate her Coumadin levels before she gets to leave. They give her the medicine one day, then test her levels the next, then see if she's still stable the next. If not, we try a different dose. This is why we're still in the hospital, they're having a hard time getting it stable. She feels no pain now, but she gets a little tired and needs to rest a lot. We go on walks around the hospital, and she does okay, but gets a little out of breath. The doctors and nurses all love her, they come back and visit her after their shifts when they aren't in our hall. It's hard not to love this little, tough, kid with an amazing attitude and big heart (I know, that's not funny....but it kind of is!!) If everything continues as it is now, we will be leaving on Tuesday. I'm going to try to have everything moved in on Monday so that Tuesday I can just focus on what the doctors need to tell me before we are discharged. I'm sure we'll have lots of instructions. I also just need to get Abby ready, she might be as nervous as I am to leave. Big thanks to Whitney and Deedee, they went to our new house to see what we needed to make it more like home, and offered to stock the cupboards and just get it ready for us. That was a great thing to do since I have to stay close to Abby and won't be able to go there before we leave. Also thanks Deedee for staying with us last night, I sleep better when I have someone else here helping to watch out for Abby.

The place we'll be staying is about 10 minutes from the hospital. It's a 2-bedroom duplex with a nice family room and cute kitchen and great backyard. The people living on the other side are just sweet. It's a doctor that works with my dad and his cute wife. She's already called the relief society and let them know we are coming. Jon and DeeDee, my brother and his wife, life only about 5 minutes away. I think I'm excited to leave and get there, but nervous too. It will be easier when we have visitors, much more comfortable! I'm going to try to stock it with things to keep us busy....games, movies, xbox, books, magazines, journals, activities, etc. Abby can't be very active, so we're going to just have to do mellow things, this will be hard for us! We're usually a little hyper! If you still feel like you want to help us in some way, this would be a small way to help, I'm worried about getting a little bored. I'm worried about finances too. I'll be paying for two households, but I just have to believe that things will work out somehow. The thing I keep trying to think about and I've probably said this in the blog before is that, Yes, we are very unlucky that this is happening to us, it's really crappy, but.....we're also pretty lucky that it's happening to us. We can do this, we have so much support. We are the perfect people for this to happen to, because of who we are. Plus all of the little tender mercies that have been happening in the past few weeks, we can't forget about those. I can honestly say that little miracles happen every day! Keep thinking about little Abby and that heart that I know she'll be getting soon!!! We are grateful for you.





Yesterday