April and May happenings

It's been 5 weeks since the last post......5 weeks!  That's good, that's real good because it means we haven't had anything major to blog about, finally!  Abby seems to be doing a little better.  She still has her exhausted, sleep 15 hour, recovery days, but those seem to be coming farther apart.  The swelling in her feet and legs happens less often now too.  She still struggles with headaches and stomach aches a lot, but we can deal with those!  I can't believe that not only have we not been to clinic since April 4th, but I haven't even had to call the transplant team.  I'm sure they're missing hearing my sweet voice up there in the cardiology clinic.  This is by far the longest without any contact with them, which means that things are good.  Abby has clinic again on May 28th, then hopefully, it's off to Hawaii on May 31st.  If something doesn't look good on the 28th, and we can't go on our trip, I'm afraid I'll throw a tantrum.  I'll probably cry uncontrollably and I won't be able to stop.  It's just not even an option, not an option at all.  We need this trip, a lot, all of us.  It's going to happen.

But first, we need to make it through the school year.  Britt is done with her first year of college.  She ended up with a 3.95 GPA and thoughts of possibly not  going to nursing school, but medical school instead.  She's still deciding, but right now she's leaning towards a nurse practitioner.  I will leave the decision to her.  She definitely needs to do something medical.  She loved her anatomy class and daily talks about the things she learned.  She's extremely fascinated with it all.  I'm proud of Britt for making school a priority, it's something that matters to her.  Brock, Abby, and I have 6 1/2 more days of school.....not that I'm counting or anything!  I can't believe that next year Brock will be a senior and Abby will be a freshman!  It's funny because Britt and I and even Abby sometimes still think she's in 6th grade. Maybe it's because she never officially finished it, I don't know.  Maybe because that's when EVERYTHING changed.  Abby's birthday is coming up, it's on May 24th, she'll be 14 years old.  I can't even believe she's that old.  Celebrating another birthday with Abby is something I'll always look forward to!

It's kind of funny how the brain works.  The past week or so, I've been having flashbacks to Abby's collapse again.  I haven't for such a long time.  I think it might always happen this time of year because we're getting really close to May 18th again.  I thought that maybe this year it wouldn't happen, but I thought wrong. Triggers are everywhere. I definitely don't want Abby out of my sight very much the next few weeks.

Last thing.  My book, Abby's Miracle is done!  It's for sale on Amazon already.  Here's the link: Abby's Miracle.  It should be available for Nook and Kindle sometime in the next couple of weeks, and in the bookstores very soon after that.  There should be a follow up article about Abby and the book in the St. George Spectrum this Saturday, and Abby and I will be on Good Things Utah on Memorial Day, May 27, Channel 4 at 9:00 AM!  We were excited when we heard about the TV show, but then we were both scared to death because it's a live show!  This is all so much fun though, and it might even help me pay a few bills.  I would appreciate it if all of you would spread the word.  Especially other other heart moms out there that have blogs, if you could post it on your blog, I would greatly appreciate it.  That's definitely one of my target audiences.  For now, I'm just enjoying the process of actually writing and publishing a book.  It's all falling into place for us, just like everything that's happened the past couple of years. If it sells, that's great.  If not, that's okay too.  I can still say I did it!