Happy New Year, 2013!

We were able to go home again for New Year's Eve and Day.  We ate, played games and tried to stay awake to welcome in a new year. And like everyone else made some resolutions!

I have a new perspective on a few things and I am going to make sure that I follow through on these.  When we heard the words transplant, and donor and the hope we had that Abbey could receive a liver, I felt greedy. I know that last year when I renewed my driver's license I did not choose to be a donor and yet I was hoping and praying that a family or person somewhere had choose to be a donor.  In the hospital environment you feel and see the worry, despair and helplessness of families and to know that somewhere there was a life ending and a family devastated was overwhelming.  Abbey and I have been trying to write a letter to the donor family.  She said today how do we even find the right words to say what we need to say, the words just don't sound important enough.  We will do our best to express the love and thankfulness we have to someone we don't know and may never know but has made the most profound miracle in our lives.

Another thing I will do is continue to give blood and also start to give plasma.  Abbey was very anemic and required multiple blood transfusions and also received plasma on several occasions.  It was life saving and I am thankful to all who have donated on other's behalf. 

Our experience at Primary Children's Hospital has been so wonderful.  We have felt like we have been in the arms of angels as we have been there.  As we were in the PICU (Intensive Care Unit) many of our family and friends came to offer support.  There was a large waiting room there that they would sit together in.  I can't describe the feeling as we would walk in there to see the love and concern on their faces.  It just had such a reverence and as we often kneeled together in prayer it just seemed like it was our room.  As we walked through there after Abbey had been moved to the ICS unit I was so surprised how it was now full of multiple families and that feeling that had been there for us was now gone. 

Another experience that comes to my mind often is of the night when Abbey was taken into surgery.  She was on continual dialysis now and had a breathing tube and their main concern that day had been for her vitals to remain at a constant safe level.  We had not met the surgeon yet who would remove Abbey's liver and prepare her for her donor liver.  It was around 12:30 am and Randy, Liss and I were sitting in a waiting room and Dr. Meyer's walked in.  She introduced herself and then said to us that she did not realize just how sick Abbey was and then she pointed toward heaven and said we are going to need help from above.  As she spoke these words there were tears in her eyes and I know it will sound strange but she just seemed to have a glow about her.  There was such love and concern and she had just met us and Abbey.  We saw her a couple of days later but was told that she only works on a very limited basis and that she is truly the best and we were lucky to have had her.  I know there was no luck involved. 

We were assigned a social worker (Barb) who has become I'm sure a life long friend.  The Sunday that Abbey arrived at the hospital and it was determined that she would need a liver we had to meet with her to be interviewed to be placed on the transplant list.  Our immediate family had to answer pages of required questions and then also speak to a pharmacist who told us the medications that would be required before Abbey could officially be listed.  Because of her efforts Abbey was able to be listed by 1:00 am on Monday morning.  We would look forward to her visits, she brought us her Elf movie and books and her own daughter's Nintendo DS for Abbey to play with.  She made the arrangements for our stay at the Ronald McDonald House, which we are very grateful for. 

The Ronald McDonald House only has two long term apartments and again things worked out that when we needed the apartment there was one vacant.  When we returned from our Christmas trip home there was a folded letter under our door that on the outside simply said room 415.  The letter was on Christmas stationery and told the story of Jeremy whose family stayed here in 1991.  He had a heart defect and passed away when he was 6 months old. They expressed how they felt that it takes a special child to be able to go through physical trials and also special families who must endure the ups and downs of watching a loved one suffer.  Because of this they wanted to ease the burden of a family and had paid for two nights of our stay here.  We thought they must have been doing this every year since 1991.  Everyday there are either families or organizations that provide meals to the families that are staying here.  You just can't imagine how that helps to know that you can have a home cooked meal that is already prepared after a long day at the hospital.   Their brochure states a home away from home and this has certainly been true for us.

So for a few of my resolutions; become a donor, give blood, donate plasma, give back to Primary Children's Hospital and Ronald McDonald House.

We had a clinic visit yesterday and we received the best news ever! Friday Abbey will be released to go home...to Richmond the best place with the best people on earth!

"All journeys eventually end in the same place, home."

-Chris Geiger

~We love you all and look forward to seeing you soon!~

 

The Owen's