Day 45

So I kind of got off the whole count-up-to-the-transplant-day thing when Claire had her surprise open heart surgery. Feels like we went from day 17 to day 45 with the blink of an eye!! Day 17 was the day before her surgery and day 18 COULD have been transplant day. But as we all know, that didn't quite happen. I still can't believe the timing of the that whole day. It was most certainly NO coincidence that Claire's dialysis catheter clotted and was unable to be used....leading to her needing surgery to replace it.....leading to a slip of the hand and a punctured heart....leading to a large clot forming around the heart.....leading to open heart surgery....AND a transplant call in between all that saying there was a kidney and liver ready for her. One of the surgeons was in the air plane with the organs bringing them to the hospital when Claire went in for the open heart surgery. They gave him a heads up at that point that the transplant may or may not happen, depending on how the surgery went. When the heart surgery was over, that's when the final decision was made to cancel transplant, give Claire time to heal and recover, and get the organs to another recipient. I don't know where those organs ended up; but we are all assuming another sweet young child received them whose life has now changed because of it. Maybe he/she needed the organs worse than Claire. But one thing I do know for sure. Everything happened for a reason on Oct 2. Claire wasn't supposed to get that kidney and liver--and something significant enough had to happen to Claire to prevent her from receiving them. It's just too bad she had to go through all of that for the rest of us to figure that out.

BUT ALL IS WELL!! And we're still happily counting up to the transplant day and grateful for each day we have to be with our princess. We had a great, fairly uneventful day today. Those are the kind we like!

The kids loved decorating a pumpkin with dozens of Halloween stickers sent by some loving grandparents. Aren't grandparents the best?! Our kids think so!

Benson was helping Claire decorate her pumpkin by pulling each sticker off from the sheet for her and placing it on the edge of the fireplace so should could easily grab it and put it on her pumpkin. What an amazing team those two are!