Picking Up The Pieces

Yesterday was the local memorial service for my husband.  Now that the funeral and the memorial service are over, we not have to try to pick up the pieces and create a new normal.

New normal.  I hate the sound of that.  I don't want to create one.  I want the old normal back.  I want my husband back.  I want my kids' father back.  I want everything to go back to normal!

I've had many people make comments about Tin Man's old heart was good enough and why did we need to play around with it.

If Tin Man hadn't gotten his transplant, we still would have had the same outcome.  I don't think he would have made it to Christmas.  He was getting bad, and he was getting bad fast.  Not only was his heart getting bad, but he also had kidney involvement.  The heart transplant gave him a fighting chance.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out the way we wanted, but I would do it all again.

I've also had people ask if we were done with Donate Life.  Um, no.  We need a little break from it, but we aren't done.  Tin Man got his transplant.  His transplant gave him a fighting chance.  Gave him the chance at a new life.  Even though that wasn't possible for him, doesn't mean someone else will have the same outcome.  I've met some great people who've received transplants, and without them, they never would have come into my life.

I plan on keeping Tin Man's story alive.  The kids and I have come up with some ideas, and once we're ready, we'll set them in motion. 

Our lives were turned upside down, and we have to give ourselves time to pick up the pieces, and then move forward and try to make something good come out of our loss.

Tin Man's Funeral

Yesterday was Tin Man's funeral.  It was a beautiful celebration of his life, and I'm so thankful to the hundreds of people that came to celebrate with us, but also to be there as support for my kids and me.

This has been a horrible week for us, and we still have a memorial service for him on the 28th.  On the 29th we can try to start picking up the pieces and focus on school and Warrior's 8th grade graduation that's coming up.

Yesterday was really rough on the kids, and Warrior isn't handling it to well at the moment.  Sugar Pea walked over to him and gave him a huge hug and then a kiss on the cheek.  A friend was able to capture this moment with her camera.  This picture speaks volumes, more than the normal 1000 words.  I'm so glad I have these 2 little people in my life and I'm even more thankful that they have each other.

Tin Man was in the Long Beach Junior Concert Band when he was younger, so a fitting tribute to him and all he did in his life was to have the LBJCB drummers and trombones come together.

Tin Man's story impacted so many people from around the world.  I've already had several ask me if they can have permission to tell his story to others.  I've even had a 2 tell me they want to become Donate Life Ambassadors and asked if they could use Patrick's story.

I would give anything to have my husband back with me, but since that's not an option anymore, I will do everything I can to keep his story alive and help him continue to make a difference in people's lives.

Heaven Has Another Angel

Tin Man passed away on Tuesday, April 10th.

I'll post more when I'm in a little better shape.

Scary Moments

Its been 1 month since Tin Man got his new heart.  New heart is looking good, even with everything he's been through in the last week.  He was giving an amazingly strong heart, and one that I hope we get to enjoy very very soon.

If you'd like to Follow Tin Man's updates please like his Facebook page.  I update it on a regular basis.  I always forget or can't think straight to sit down and come up with a blog post.

We're at Stanford.  One of the best hospitals in the world.  So when a group of doctors, including the surgeons that did Tin Man's transplant look at you and tell you that we have never seen this before and we have no clue how to treat it, it becomes very scary, very fast.

We were even told that they had a group of doctors and med students going through medical journals looking to see if there was anything like this documented so they could come up with some ideas on how to fix it.

They were all taking guesses as to what to do to help him.  Thankfully their guesses worked and were able to get him stable and buy him some time to get his lungs to stop bleeding.

The type of ECMO machine he was put on, there's only 15 in the country, and Stanford has 3 of them.  Tin Man had 2 in his room.  The one he was on and a backup just in case he started clotting in the machine they could switch him over to the other machine.

I do know that if we'd been at almost any other hospital he wouldn't have survived, so I am very thankful to the doctors and nurses here.

He still has a long long uphill battle, but thankfully they were able to give him the chance to fight to recover.

This was taken last night.

Only Positive Thoughts Allowed

I am going to print something up for Tin Man's door that says Only Positive Thoughts Allowed.

Doctors are telling us a lot of negative things.  Which means they are talking about these negative things while they are all in Tin Man's room.  He needs to be surrounded by the positive things, not the negative.

Even in his sedated state, he's awake and responsive when you call his name.  I firmly believe that since he can respond to his name, that he can hear other things being said in his room.

So I'm taking a stand and not allowing any negative talk in his room.  This includes doctors, nurses, family, and visitors.

My mother-in-law thinks I'm nuts, but I don't care.  This is my husband, and he needs positive energy so he can get better and we can move past this and get on with the rest of our lives!