Day 11... and counting

At some point, I'm going to need to go shopping and get myself some new pants... apparently having a sick child has become my unintended weight-loss program.  It's also my Look-10-Years-Older-in-10-Days program, so I wouldn't recommend it.  What can you do?  Someday soon I'll eat and sleep better and maybe not look so haggard.  I've got bigger things to be concerned about anyway.

Today was a good day and I really needed that.  Caleb has been stable and in good spirits for the last several days, and Daniel and I decided it was safe(ish) to start taking turns going home.  I got to go first, and last night I went home with Jonah and slept in my bed and read a newspaper and stayed in my jammies until noon.  It was absolute heaven... except I missed Caleb so much. Daniel and I talked on the phone or texted about every hour in the time I was gone, which was less than 24 hours.  I decided to take Jonah on a lunch date, and I told him he could pick anywhere he wanted to go.  He thought about that for a second and said, "Mommy, where's your favorite place?"  I said, "My favorite place is Pizza King."  Jonah said, "Then I pick Pizza King because I love it when you're happy."  I started to tear up, as I'm in the habit of doing about once every 5 seconds, and hugged him until he was sick of me.  We had a wonderful date that included playing Michael Jackson on the jukebox and eating 7 breadsticks between the two of us.

I came back to the hospital this afternoon, so ready to see my other boy.  He was doing great.  When I walked into his room, Caleb clapped and grinned and said, "Mommy!" and I teared up again.  Why I even bother putting mascara on in the morning, I don't know.  I have prayed and prayed that Caleb's spirits would stay up, that he wouldn't get depressed being here but would be calm and happy.  And God has been answering that prayer, because that kid is hamming it up and has every nurse around here wrapped around his finger.  I will never be able to parent this child when we get home because he totally thinks it's normal for people to bring him "goo-kies" any time he asks.

We're doing ok.  Daniel and I have our moments where one of us is on the verge of a breakdown, but we encourage each other and keep going.  We're accepting our reality and looking SO forward to that moment when we get a phone call saying we've got a heart.  People have been asking questions about the transplant process- here are a few details.  We can get a heart from as far away as 1500 miles.  They gotten hearts from as far away as Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Toronto, Canada.  There is a team of 3 surgeons here who do the transplants; at any given time, 2 of them are available.  When we get a call that there's a heart somewhere, one of the surgeons takes off in a Lear jet (no joke), goes and surgically removes the heart, then brings it back to pass it off to another surgeon, who goes into the operating room and will put it into Caleb's chest.  The amount of time between the heart being removed from one body and placed into Caleb's body has to be less than 4 hours.  Now that Caleb is officially on the transplant list, we could get the call any minute.  And when we get the call, we go right then and Caleb goes almost immediately to the operating room.  It's a pretty amazing process.

Things to pray for today:
1- Pray for Caleb's spirits to stay up, for him to find happiness in his routine here.
2- Pray for the perfect heart to become available as soon as possible.
3- Pray for our marriage to be strong and for us to be able to support each other and somehow still invest in our relationship in the midst of this craziness.

Much love to you all- if you're wearing your Praying for Caleb t-shirts or bracelets, please post your picture on facebook.  We LOVE to see that!