Just some random thoughts.....

Can you believe that we've been living in Salt Lake for a little over 3 months now....that's more than 1/4 of the year!!  To me, it feels like we've been here for much longer, it has been the longest, hardest 3 months of my life......but, we are getting closer to going home :)

I've always loved watching my kids play sports, and right now it's football season and I get to watch Brock play football.  He's always been so much fun to watch.... he's big, he's tough, and he's good.  I've never seen a kid love a sport like Brock loves football.  He's loved it since the first time he played when he was 7-years-old.  I don't think he's ever missed a football practice in his life, and I'm pretty sure he's the first one to get to practice and the games and the last one to leave every day!!  I am so grateful that Abby is doing well enough now that I will get to watch Brock play.  Once again, the timing was perfect.  The first weekend we were able to go home was the same weekend as Brock's 1st game......funny how things keep happening that way for us, how can you not believe that someone is taking care of us through all of this??

This is the first month, in I don't even know how many years, that I'm not going to earn a paycheck.  This is hard for me, it makes me question my worth right now.  I know I need to be doing other things right now, taking care of Abby is the most important thing I can be doing, but it still just doesn't feel right.  Especially now, I am so thankful for the fundraising that has taken place to help us through this time.  It makes me able to focus on other things, the more important things, until I can get back to work.

Abby is feeling so good, you would never know that she had a heart transplant only 6 weeks ago.  She's only on oxygen during the night now, woohoo!!!  We've been packing those tanks around for the last 3 months!  Every time we've left the house the past couple of days, we've felt like we're forgetting something, but I really don't think it will take too long to get used to it again, it makes things so much easier!  Hopefully, Abby will never have to hear me say, "Abby, have you checked your tank," or, "Is your tank ready??" ever again!!  And I really don't miss hearing the hum of the concentrator all day, it seems so peaceful!  She's also tapered off of many of her meds.  She's down from 6 extra strength Tums to only 2, and she's also on only half of her blood pressure meds, she's also down from 35 mg of predisone to only 10 mg/day; hopefully this means her puffy cheeks will start going down too!!   She only has to take meds 3 times a day now instead of 4.    We've been going on long walks every night, and we bought a new soccer ball yesterday, I think it's time to start kicking it around again.  I'm just shocked at how fast her recovery has been.  We still have a long way to go, this will never be easy, but it's getting better.  She wants to run so bad, but it's still going to be a couple of weeks.  They want to wait until her next cath and biopsy and then if things look good, they will her have do treadmill test.  Honestly, I'm in no rush for her to run again.  The thought of it freaks me out just a little bit since that's how this all began, but she thinks she's ready, so I guess I need to get ready too. 

This week we realized that we really don't have that many days left in Salt Lake!  If we are only here 4 days a week, and we move back in the middle of October, that's only about 30 more days here!  Rather than feeling like it's prison being here, we're going to try to do as many fun things as possible.  Yesterday we spent the day in Park City.  It was the first day that all of the kids were back in school, so we really felt like we were ditching!  It was awesome.  We've also been going getting caught up on movies.  We are going to try to do something fun every day .  Some of my plans are the Planetarium, the state capitol, This is the Place monument, the aquarium, the Natural History museum, and drive up the canyons.....maybe we can even go on walks there too.  If you have any other ideas, please let me know!  We have a lot of people to visit with here too, it will be sad when we do move back, it's been fun to see all of my Salt Lake friends and family!!  But, I do know that we will still be coming here often for Abby's appointments, so it's not like we are moving forever.  We will be frequent visitors to Salt Lake probably for the rest of our lives! 

Last weekend I was finally able to see the amazing donor book that Ann Bany made for Abby's donor family....it is incredible.  Ann, I could tell how much time you spent on that and we don't even know how to  thank you.  You did an incredible job, you definitely have a talent!!  I also couldn't believe how many people signed it, thank you everyone!  If you haven't been able to write a note in the book to Abby's donor family and you'd like to, just let me know and we can arrange it.  It's still in St. George now, there were some people that still needed to sign it there, but I will bring it to Salt Lake next week.  Hopefully, I'll hear back from the donor family soon so that eventually, I'll be able to pass it on to them. 

Things are good, really good.  I'm looking forward to the day when we are back in our house with the kids and the dogs all there together, but I'm happy with being able to go home every weekend.....this will work for me.  I feel like I'm more able to keep the connection with Britt and Brock and keep in contact with our friends and family there.  But, I also know how important it is that Abby is still close to PCMC and her doctors here.  It seems like it's a perfect solution for everybody!  I pray every clinic visit that Abby continues to accept her heart and heal from the surgery so we can stick with this plan.  Thank you everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers, it's so obvious theya re working :)