".......and not to yield!"

   
     What a weekend.  I can't believe everything that's happened in even just a few days.  We'll start with talking about Brock's football game.  We were lucky enough to be able to go watch Brock play in the semi-finals at Rice Eccles last Thursday.  Brock was so excited to play there, he loves that place!  Even though Desert Hills lost, the game was still fun.  We were winning the whole first half, then just made some mistakes, and we just couldn't get going again.  As hard as it is to lose, the team far surpassed what most people thought they would do this year, they played their guts out, and just getting to play at Rice Eccles is always the goal.  I thought that Brock was amazing, but since I'm his mom, I might be a little biased.  The bad thing about the game was that with about 5 minutes left in the game, Brock got hurt.  I saw him go down and have a hard time standing back up, I could tell it was his ankle, his good ankle, the one that doesn't need surgery already.  He could barely walk, I knew it was bad.  I saw him hobble off to the sidelines, then tell the trainer to forget it that he was going back in to play, and he did. He finished out the game, but he was in a lot of pain.  I was proud of him for sticking it out and finishing, even when it hurt so bad.  It was hard for me to see him out there limping around and trying to play when I knew he was hurt, it was sad.  Since I had to stay in Salt Lake for Abby's biopsy, I had to send him home without me.  I hated that I couldn't be there to help him, but I knew that I needed to be there for Abby.  Big thanks to my friend Heather for letting Brock ride home with her and the boys and for helping him keep it iced and elevated.  He would have been really hurting on the bus.  As for now, he still can't put any weight on it, he's on crutches only.   It could possibly be a ligament tear, or something might be broken, we just don't know yet.  I take him to see the doctor tomorrow.  I'm really hoping that it doesn't need surgery or else he'll be having surgery on both his ankles.  Now that the football season is over, we can move forward with his surgery on his foot that's needed surgery all season too.  We will set a date tomorrow when we see the doctor, hopefully it will be soon so that he can recover and be ready to play again.  I'm extremely grateful that his ankle held up through the whole season and that he could play, Brock loves football!

     The next morning Abby and I had to be at Primary Children's at 6:00 for her 7:30 biopsy.  We were both so tired because we didn't go to bed the night before until after midnight, so 5:00 came really fast.  We went through the regular pre-biopsy routine, nothing was out of the ordinary.  Dr. Day was performing the biopsy again, and we had a nice chat with him before he started.  I think that both Abby and I felt confident that it was going to come back clean.  My pager went off after only about an hour, it usually takes longer than that.  I walked down the hall to the cath lab to talk to Dr. Day about how things went, and then I could see that there were 2 people waiting to talk to me, not just one.  My heart sank when I saw it was Dr. Kaza, Abby's transplant surgeon.  Don't get me wrong, we love the man, he is amazing, but seeing him waiting in the cath lab scared me to death.  We talked for a few minutes, then they told me that Abby's pressures that they measure during the cath were much higher than they've ever been.  They've never told me that before, ever.  Her pressures in the cath lab have always looked okay.  The cath measures how well the heart is pumping and measures the pressures in the heart and lungs, Abby's were higher than usual.  I knew that this could be a sign of rejection, but that's all that I knew.  Seeing Dr. Kaza there made me think that it was something more serious, I just didn't know.  I then went up to see Abby in recovery and when I walked in she was crying.  She's never crying in there, usually she's happy and just ready to get out of there.  They told me that her blood pressure was way too high and that she had a horrible headache.  Her last blood pressure was measured at 152/112, yes, that's way too high.  Apparently, her blood pressure had also been high during the procedure as well.  They wanted me to give Abby her blood pressure meds, then we just had to wait in the pacu until it came down enough for us to leave.    By this time, I had decided that Abby was still in rejection and I had already started texting the other transplant moms so that I could try to determine what was going to happen next.  I was pretty worried.  The guessing game is horrible, I wish I didn't play it!

     After almost 2 hours, they finally let us go down to the cardiology clinic for an echo and to meet with the transplant team.  Everything, other than her cath pressures looked really good, so we were feeling pretty good about things again.  Dr. Molina told us that high pressures could also be a result of the steroids Abby's on, it's not always rejection, but she wanted us to stay in Salt Lake until the biopsy results came back, just in case.  We knew that if the biopsy looked the same or worse that Abby would be admitted.  They usually come back at about 4:30, so we had a couple of hours to waste; So, we did our normal waste time activity and went to a movie.  We saw Wreck-It Ralph, or I guess I should say that Abby saw it, I took a much needed nap.  When we got that call that the biopsy was a 1-1-0, which is almost perfect, we were relieved!  They do want to monitor Abby's rejection med levels closely, so she'll have to have a lab draw on Friday.  Then they wanted to see us the next Monday again, but that's the day of Brock's football banquet, and I feel like it's too soon, so I'm going to call and see if we can push it to the Monday after Thanksgiving instead, I really don't want to make the drive again next weekend, I need more time.  Even though the weather was horrible, we decided to drive home anyway, I felt like I needed to be there for Brock.  Luckily, somehow, we made it home.  The roads all the way to Beaver were awful, It was a major blizzard and the roads were snow-packed.  I was physically and emotionally exhausted, but we made it. We obviously had some help from above to get here safely!  I think it's a good thing that we came home Friday so that we cold have a couple of days to recover, we needed it.

     I've noticed the last 2 days since we've been home, that when people see Brock on his crutches and find out he's now injured, that on top of everything else, they give me such an incredulous look, like they just can't believe it that all of this could be happening to us.  Then they just look so sad.  Some people have said that they don't know whether to laugh or cry when they hear everything we're going through, and I know how they feel, I've spent some time laughing, but lots of time crying too.  It's a lot to deal with, and it's hard.   A friend at church today told me that she puts me on a pedestal, but really, that's not where I deserve to be.  I've spent a lot of time this week feeling picked on.  Thursday night when Brock got hurt and Friday, I think I reached my all-time low.  I spent some time trying to figure out what I had done wrong to deserve all of this,  I also spent some time trying to convince myself that I can't just give in and throw in the towel, it doesn't work like that.  I also even threw it out there and admitted to my heart friends in my Intermountain Healing Hearts group that I was having an extremely hard time, thankfully they responded and were there to try to help me out of my rut.  I'm proud to say that after two days of self-pity, I got over it.  Today, after a couple of nights of good sleep and a massage, I'm feeling more like I'm ready and able to somehow deal with things again.  I won't give up, I know that I've said it before, but things have to start getting easier, this time I mean it, they really have to.

We went and saw a great movie yesterday, well the second half was great anyway, I slept through the first half, but I heard it was good.  We saw the new James Bond movie, Skyfall.  During a part that I was awake, they recited the ending to a Tennyson poem called Ulysses.  I loved the ending and felt like it truly fits what I'm feeling tonight:

tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

"Not to yield," that's my goal for this week.  Thanks for your fasting and prayers for Abby the past few weeks.  Now Brock could really use some as well. We're praying for good news tomorrow!   Our bishop today told me that maybe he'll just block out some time each Sunday to give the Doman family priesthood blessings.  He thought it was funny, but inside I was thinking that that might just be a perfect idea!