A New Heart!

We got the call late yesterday that there was a possible heart for Harry, it was his if it was in good condition. They finally took him around midnight (I think) to go in for surgery and at 3:45 (I think) they came out and said they were attaching the new heart. At 7:40 this morning they came out and told my Mom that the new heart was in and beating on its own! They were still finishing up, but so far so good! He has done such a great job so far. He recovered from his BiVAD surgery and was back on the list in 19 days, most people take months. He was on the transplant list for a grand total of 10 days, 5 days before the BiVAD and 5 days after. I realize that we hve been very blessed in this and am so grateful for the donor to have made it possible for Harry to keep on going, and am amazed at the doctors and what they are able to do...especially in the middle of the nught! Harry would definately not be around anymore if transplants weren't possible and if the donor had not made the decision to be a donor. We have a lot to be grateful for. Thanks for all of the prayers and support! These pictures were all taken yesterday after we got the news about the possible heart.

Anyone who knows Harry very well knows he doesn't love cameras and doesn't especially like to smile for them. When we got there he looked happier than I have seen him in quite a while. He even suffered through my photo session while he made faces and crazy smiles!

My mom isn't going to love that she has her lovely cold sore in these pictures, but she looks great anyway!

I can't remember the reason Harry was "getting after" my Mom...obviously sopmething was funny and I thought the picture was pretty funny itself!

I think Harry was sticking his tongue out as a protest to all of the pictures and demand for "serious" smiles! You gotta love him!

The grand Houston Finally...I mean...Finale!

Finally we get to the part the girls...and the parents I guess...were looking mmost forward to. We had great seats for the rodeo and concert thanks to Aunt Gail. The arena was HUGE so even with great seats, we weren't that close to the stage. Since we watched the end of the rodeo, we got to watch them assemble the stage for the concert, and we got to watch the band warm up a bit. Scott left to go get food because the Kaylin was STARVING, but he got back just as the concert was about to start and nobody was hungry anymore! The girls all had a great time. There was dancing and cheering and some people who kept holding a big sign up in front of us every time the stage faced us (it was rotating through the entire show) so we could only see Taylor really well on the big screen. She did an awesome job and kept us entertained, even though Lindsey got a little feisty becasue it was WAY past her bedtime and Hailey BARELY made it through the last song before falling asleep! The last picture in the slide show is the girls with Aunt Gail and 2 of her kids Karen and Lee, and, of course, the dogs. The girls LOVED the concert, but I'm not sure that they didn't love the dogs and our family just as much! So, thanks Aunt Gail and everyone else for the great time!

Houston Part 4? I lost track!

On our last day in Houston we went to the aquarium and saw all kinds of fish, sharks, and white tigers. (Doesn't everyone expect to see white tigers at an aquarium?) We also rode some rides...Lindsey was so brave and rode the drop ride (yeah, I forgot what it's really called) and she loved it! We rode on the ferris wheel and took a ride on a little train. After that we hurried over to the Houston Rodeo. It was lots of fun. we started off with the appropriate carnival snacks of fried twinkies, fried oreos, fried cookie dough (my personal fav), ice cream and sodas. After not being able to actually eat all of that crap...thank goodness!!!...we did a little Taylor Swift Karaoke to prep us for the big concert that night, visited the kids section of the rodeo booths and saw a lot of animals. It was tons of fun.

A Bit of Good News!

Harry got moved out of ICU yesterday! He seems to be making good progress in his recovery and the docs are very impresses with his pain tolerance and say he is recovering much quicker than most patients. They think he might be able to go back on the transplant list in a couple of weeks! I found a few more old pics of Harry...of course with the kids all around him! These pics are from Christmas '03, so you can see what he used to look like a few years back!

This is Harry with one of Layla's girls...I'm going to guess Riley since her fingers are in her mouth.

This is Mattie and one of the twins...I'm not even going to attempt guessing this time! Lindsey says it is Grandpa with Olivia and Luke....I guess she sees the family resemblance between siblings!

This is a very typical scene with Grandpa Harry. The kids just gravitate towards him, which he loves! This is Caitlin or Riley on Grandpa, Olivia is the other baby, and sorry Sophie, you got cut in half on this picture!

Houston Part 3

So...the journey continues....On day 3 we went to the Houston Space Center. After the road construction and faulty road signs, we finally managed to make it to the space center. As soon as we parked the car though, Lindsey announces that she peed in her carseat. Great, I didn't bring any extra clothes. So we use our not so trusty GPS to take us to a Target....only when we had "arrived at our destination" there was NO Target or anything around to get replacement clothes. We finally found a dollar store...oh yeah, love those dollar store clothes! So I change Lindsey and sit her on a towell in her car seat and we head back to the space center. Haiely waits until we are on the road to announce that she now has to pee. So I tell her she better hold it until we can find a bathroom becasue I was not stoppoing to buy clothes again! We find a fast food place and I rush her in and we rush back out and manage to make it ALL the way back to the space center parking lot. As Hailey gets out, scott notices her pants are WET!!! Seriously?! Well, apparantly I rushed her in and out of the bathroom so fast that I didn't notice she had already had a little accident and since I had said I wouldn't stop again, she didn't tell us so she wouldn't get in trouble. Well, even thgough I said I wasn't going to stop again to buy clothes, in reality I wasn't about to drag her around all day with a wet bum. SO....we leave again, this time hoping our GPS would lead us to a WalMart. Due to the oad construction and detours, the GPS got thoroughly confused, at times not even thinking we were on ANY road at all. AFter much driving around, we Lindsey...I had learned you could never be too sure...and then realized that Old Nave does not sell Undiees in Hailey's size! I really was done driving around and we had spent half of our day trying to find clothes for the kids, so I tried to just make her wear a pull up. She was not happy. Then I remembered we had brought our swim suits becasue we were going to head to the beach after the space center, so she traded in the pull up for the swim suit bottoms. AT LAST we are on our way into the space center and had a really great time. The kids loved playing in their play center (I loved that we drove half way across the country to go to the Houston Space Center and watch my kids play on the play equipment). We did get to see some pretty cool stuff though and I learned about VADs in a video there (Harry now has a BiVAD in place, so I thought that was pretty cool). We had time to take one shuttle and see one extra place and Kaylin picked the underwater training facility. This is where the astronauts train for their missions. Under water is the closest thing they can get to weightlessness for long term training. After we left the space center we drove to Galveston where after on blurry picture, my camera battery died. So I missed out on some pretty cool photo opps with the houses on stilts and some hurricane damage and the girls playing on the beach (for 5 minutes because we took too much tim finding replacement clothes earlier in the day...luckily I picked up the extra outfit for Lindsey as she had no self control and was SOAKED from the ocean!). We ended our adventure by eating at a seafood restaurant where we had to wait much longer than Scott would have liked, but the food was AWESOME!!! Even Kaylin decided she liked the Tilapia! The adventure ended late that night with the 2 little girls hanging out on Aunt Gail's lap. They loved being with her and Lindsey called her Grandma the whole time! (Are you getting sick of our Texas trip yet 'cause it's not over yet! Stay tuned for the exciting finale coming soon!)

Update on Harry

First of all, everyone should know this is NOT a picture of Harry. It is some random guy I found on the internet, so thanks random guy for the pic!
Harry had surgery yesterday and now has a BiVAD in place and working to help him until he can get a transplant. The Dr. said he bled less than most patients and the surgery took less time than usual and he is doing great. He was able to get rid of the breathing tube earlier today and has even "woken up" a little. He is very groggy and I doubt he will remember waking up, but he is recovering exactly as the doctors want! Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers so far! Keep them coming, they seem to be working! :)
http://www.mayoclinic.org/heart-transplant/vad.html?wt.srch=1&wt.mc_id=google&keyword=arizona_BiVAD_BiVAD&campaign=mca_heart_transplant&state=arizona&kw=bivad&ad=3222183048&Network=Search&SiteTarget=&gclid=CL_ow9KY4pkCFRMUagodt3-wVQ
(Sorry I don't know how to link a word to a web page yet, but this will tell a little about the BiVAD)

More of Grandpa Harry

This is a video I found from about 3 years ago. It is Harry and Hailey at the piano. It is pretty typical of him: playing with the kids, but why in the world would he want to be on a video? Anyway, Harry goes in tomorrow morning to get an artificial heart (or something else that is not quite as good thanks tp the insurance comapny...aaaaggggghhhhh!!!!!!) while he is still waiting for a heart transplant. It is pretty scary, but we feel like everything is going to go well. Please keep him in your prayers!

Houston Part 2

So, I forgot to get my camera out for our first day in Houston and missed getting any pictures with Jonathon, who is Aunt Gail's only grandchild. He left after that to spend his spring break with his mom. He is a couple of years older than Kaylin, but was so nice to the girls and knew how to play with them! Thanks Jonathon for the fun day with you! Next time...I won't forget the camera! These pictures are from Day 2, the day of the museums. Houston has a whole section dedicated to Museums, which makes it really easy to visit more than one a day, since they are all so close to each other! We started out at the Children's Museum where the kids had fun doing all sorts of things, including painting their own faces! I love how Kaylin's letters were written backwards becasue she was looking in the mirror and they looked right to her! Kaylin built her own little contraption to roll balls down. It was a masterpiece! After that we went to the Museum of Natural History. We saw dinosaur bones, learned about drilling for oil, saw a lion about to bite into a Zebra...not unlike Alex and Marty from Madagascar...a family fav! We got to see a million rocks, minerals, gems, and jewelry, and finally made it to the butterfly garden where at the VERY LAST ssecond before heading up the stairs to leave, a butterfly FINALLY landed on Hailey, changing the the worst day of her life to the best! The day was finished up with a visit from cousin Karen and her dog Chester and Jonathon's dog Skipper (the dogs also happen to be brothers). What a great day!!!