Abby's back in school and this is going to be the best Christmas ever!!!

Well, one whole week since the last post, that must mean that things are looking okay....and they are!!  Other than Abby's blood pressure hanging real low, she's been feeling pretty good this past week. I actually feel like maybe things are going to settle down little bit.....finally!!!  But from what I've heard, as soon as you start feeling like that, that is when the ground falls out from beneath you.  Let's hope it doesn't this time, we are due for some peace and quiet!!

Abby went back to school this past week.  Well, what we are calling "school" isn't exactly like a normal 7th grader's school.  She doesn't have a full schedule, she doesn't eat in the cafeteria, she sneaks out of class to take her meds twice a day, she leaves each class 5 minutes early so she's not out in the halls when all the other kids are, if someone is sick her class she leaves, she always wears her mask, and when she was so exhausted after Monday and Tuesday, she took Wednesday off.  It's a modified school, but it's the best we can do right now, and Abby is happy with it!  She has missed her friends and the social life so much.  She said that the first few days were weird, everyone was staring at her and swarming her, but now things are back to normal.  It feels good to have some things start to get back to normal.

Abby received an awesome gift from our new friends Patti and Wayne last week.  They arranged to have Abby Wombach, from the US Women's Soccer Team, personally autograph and write a note to Abby on their 2011 WNT Handbook.  Apparently, some of the players are now following the blog!!  If you're reading this....thank you!!  Abby has read and studied it over and over again.  Big thanks to Patti and Wayne too, what a great surprise!!!  These women are great heroes for Abby.

We go back up to Salt Lake on Sunday night for early clinic on Monday.  It seems like recently, everytime we've had clinic, they've found some problem....there's always something that isn't going right!  This causes me a lot of anxiety on clinic days.  What I really want to do is to learn to just expect things to be "off"..........to "expect the unexpected."  I wish that I could train myself to just plan on things not being perfect, so that when things happen that aren't planned, I can handle them better.  I want to be able to just go with flow, keep it together, and not lose it!   This is what I wish I could do, but it's harder than it sounds.  I don't want to be pessimistic, having a positive, uplifting attitude is what I believe has helped Abby do as well as she has so far......but I do want to be realistic.  I hope that this will come with time and with more experience in dealing with these thing.  I just need to remember that :

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.”
― Orson F. Whitney

I love Christmas!  When I was a kid, I was always the first one awake in our house and even since I've become the mom, I've carried that tradition.  I love Christmas music, I love giving gifts, I just love the season (except the cold anyway-thank goodness for electric blankets!) This Christmas is a little different.  There's not a lot of money for presents this year, we're trying to keep Abby away from big groups of people- which eliminates a lot of our Christmas traditions, the whole family is pretty much on a diet-which takes away lots of other Christmas fun, and we're all  just a little worn out-we just don't have as much energy as we have in the past.  But, we as a family know that we've already received the greatest Christmas present ever, the greatest miracle, we got our Christmas on July 12th, the day that Abby received her heart from a family that we don't even know, and  because of this amazing, selfless gift, we get to spend this Christmas season with Abby.......what more could we ever ask for????  This is going to be our best Chrismas ever.