Not trying to jinx it, but......

This WAS "as soon as possible", believe me.

I've been having some touristy fun sometimes here in San Diego. When not busy with other things, I've been with my dad's cousin Lori and her husband Steve. Lori hasn't even seen my dad for years but they grew up together and I was encouraged to get in touch with her. Boy am I glad I did, they've been like my angels here so i don't have to be totally alone. They are so nice! I've been to the temple with them, went to their ward, been at their place a few times, we went to see a movie once. Steve is a born 'n raised San Diegan so he showed me some beaches and sights yesterday, that was way fun. And they helped transport me and Grant to a body shop and car rental shop Wednesday too.

Oh yeah. Did you hear/ or see on the Twitter that I got in a car accident Tuesday? I seriously cannot believe how some people drive down here. I have on a couple of occasions left rubber on the freeways here trying to prevent being in an accident, and seen 2 really expensive cars almost run each other off the road another time. Yet i was still scared and surprised when I was just minding my own buissness Tuesday about to turn right at an intersection and got rear ended HARD. And of course the guys truck? Broken headlight, teeny bit of paint damage. My car? Totally crunched on the drivers side. He was very apologetic, and he better pay for all of it. I will find out this week if my car is totaled, i sure hope not. Well that's just been one more thing to deal with this week. So annoying. Anyways the real event going on lately, what anyone would want me to post on......... here it is.

Last time I did something like this, my post titled "Good so far", I found out very soon afterwards the graft would have to be redone. I hope I'm not jinxing this somehow, but I thought since we're not only 2 days post op, a few more days have passed this time and so I'll do a real non-twitter update. So here I am again at the coffee shop that has computers in it.

The 2nd try at a cornea graft was Wed. January 14th. It's now been 11 days since that surgery and it's still looking good. Shoot I think if I bring a flash card adapter I could share a picture or 2 of this. I will do that after tomorrow's appointment I promise promise. He's so cute, gotta share pictures of him.

I am excited, but trying not to get my hopes up too much yet, something could happen at any time to his delicate little eye that would leave him worse than he started. But it hasn't yet, I'm trying to be as careful as possible, and today it's still fine. I'm still somewhat on "one day at a time" mode, but that's actually a good thing since every day his eye hasn't rejected he's beating some real tough odds and developing his vision. And shouldn't we all think of our kids that way anyway, miracles God has given each day to us?

"Do human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?"---- Thornton Wilder, Our Town.

You can sum it up as "cautiously happy and gaurded optimisim". Whatever balance of prayers/fasting/anything else we've managed to collectively do for Grant is working now, so lets keep it up! Stitches come out Wednesday( I know that's not one day at a time, but so what) as long as it's all still clear, and if there are no immediate complications after that I could go home with Grant next weekend maybe and have the opthamologists in Utah help us with the follow up care on the left eye.

And so that's what's going on. Breathing sighs of relief at every dr. visit. Having my mom come with Linc last week was fun! I miss them both. We went to Sea World one day, Lincoln wants to live there. I want to live at the San Diego temple. Wow is that place gorgeous! I never wanted to leave. I hope to go back as soon as possible.

I really shouldn't spend all my $$ on $5.50 an hour internet time so I'm gonna go. bye now!

BRB

I had plans for today, but they got poxed. I have to go move my car and get some more meds for Grant, but then I will be back at the internet cafe and finally finally write a post. Grant's cornea looks like it might actually take this time, and its amazing. So I'll come back asap stay tuned!

btw, don't you love that I keep ya informed via twitter in the absence of other viable options? I love it so much.

bye

Fail

The top layer of the cornea is the most crucial part. Grant has pretty much lost all of his. Might be because of the many many eyedrops and not being gentle enough when wiping off the excess medicine. Might be because the boy does not blink often enough, sleeps with his eyes peeped just slightly open and does not roll his eyes back into his head when he sleeps. Did you know pretty much everyone sleeps that way, with their eyeballs looking way way up when they sleep? I've never even thought about it, but mostly everyone does it. Not Grant.

A combination of all those things have apparently wrecked the cornea within 4 days. At the appointment today I will find out if a 2nd transplant (scheduled for tomorrow morning) would be more successful.

You know, I've gotta leave for the dr soon and talking/thinking too much about this has the tendency to make me unable to get through the rest of the day so I'm just gonna stop right there. More details I can write about when I think I can handle it and when I can come to the medical library again to use their computers. That's it for now though.

My mom and Lincoln's trip to San Diego has been moved up by 2 days, so they will arrive this afternoon. She wanted to be with me for tomorrow's redo surgery, so rescheduled it all. I am looking forward to seeing them today. Couldn't even think about it yesterday much. Can't worry about tomorrow yet either because.... well, that's tomorrow and goes against the 'one day at a time' mentality I've had to adopt.

Ooh gotta go for real now. The elders called and are coming over again to do a blessing so bye.

Going ok so far

Well we found an internet cafe to print off Mike's boarding pass, he's leaving tomorrow to go back to work and home (and unfortunately, not Lincoln.) But speaking of that, Linc's doing just fine in Vegas and maybe it might actually do both me and him some good to get time apart for a bit. I'll be alone caring for the baby from Sunday-Thursday. Then my mom has a trip planned from SLC to Vegas, she'll pick up Linc, then come the rest of the way to San Diego and stay for a few days. It will be really cool to not have to take care of Grant all alone. We'll go to church tomorrow, and maybe some members in the area can even offer me some assistance. People from the Church of Christ or something like that came last night to provide a meal to people staying at Bannister, and they offered assistance if I don't get it from, you know, people of my own religion. I think Mike and I's families are helping a lot, as much as possible, but are counting on the church to fill in and help us and Grant as a payback for YEARS of paying tithing and temple attendance and faith and all that. So hopefully some of that comes through. Already has, actually. I mentioned in the Twitter yesterday about the elders coming over? That was nice.

Well the transplant seems fine. His eyeball appearance is immediately different. Morning after the transplant we were very concerned all day yesterday because the dr took off the bandages, acted upset and swore, and called it "borderline rejection/success". Tons of eyedrops later, this mornings appt. went much better. Going back Monday.

Sorry if this post seems kinda rambly or not informative enough, but I'm trying to hurry. This place is closing any second. I'll try hard to go to the medical library computers monday and write a more detailed post of some kind. Thats the closest internet access. till then there's always twitter. lots and lots of twitters.

don't shut the power off on me, I'm leaving!!

bye.

MAYBE leaving tomorrow???

So if you don't ignore the twitter you know this already. :p

No just kidding. Wanted to expound on it while I'm near a computer though. I have a place to stay, have looked up which ward to attend while I'm there, have some food I can bring along with me to keep spending to a minimum, and started getting packed and organized this morning. But the part I'm most creeped out over-the tissue coming from a person who is now dead- might not work out.

All the corneas coming into the eye center for this week's surgeries are unsuitable for an infant. They have to be completely intact, and it's not happening so far. It's wonderful that Dr. Brown is being so particular about the quality for my baby, but if nothing comes in by close of buissness hours today I guess a surgery can't happen on the 8th. And scheduling a surgery date at the really busy children's hospital was difficult, it'll be hard to get another time. So pray that something comes in today that will work on a baby. I know it seems gross to even hope for it considering it means somebody else had to die, but.... I dunno, just do it anyway. Grant having at least some vision is important to us!

bye

Leaving tomorrow

We have a noon appointment in San Diego to acess Grant, so we are either leaving late tonight or very early in the morning, in hopes that Grant will sleep in the car on the way at least most of the trip. Here's hoping!

And Mike is getting picked up at the airport and will be here soon so time to put on some makeup for my husband. ;) Anyway I gotta go. But thanks for all the fasting and prayers and such and we'll see how this surgery goes. Keep praying for him until further notice.