Lab Fiascos and Trying to Exist without Katie

So I botched both lab attempts this week by not bringing the orders, instructions for the portion sent to Pittsburgh, and all the UPS stuff to send it.  Shayna had to get poked Tuesday and Wednesday and things still weren't straightened out since the prograf level test was canceled for some reason even though they kept the blood to run that test.  Luckily, there's next week. 

The house is 1/2 unpacked.  I miss all the nooks and cubbyholes of our Eldridge house.  I need to get some more pretty storage shelves and cubbies here to protect the table and counter spaces from ballagon.  This house is about 2.5 times the size of our Eldridge apt but there's 1/2 the space to put things.  I miss Katie the cleaning hurricane.  I have to do all the unpacking, Shayna care and regular house stuff myself plus I don't get any gym breaks.  Oh well, I guess it's just back to normal life and pushing the jogger.

Shayna's doing great for the most part.  She's perfected the pincher move so can now get all the little things on the carpet into her mouth (a week ago she could only pick them up but would miss her mouth).  We still have to coax her to scoot as she'd prefer it if we'd hand her what she wants.  She squeeled and hooted at some ducks and a bunny today.  We also visited Aba who showed her off to all his friends in the VT physics dept.

The "Aravs in Virginia" Again

We pulled into our garage about 1 1/2 hrs ago (from starting this post) and couldn't be more delighted to be home.  This homecoming was more meaningful and more wonderful than when we first brought Shayna home from the hospital at 3-days-old.  It was magical a year ago because of this beautiful, new, healthy life we had been blessed with but within 4 months of that first breath we learned something was trying to snuff that beautiful life out.  We took a dying child and a healthy man to Pittsburgh and have returned home with a thriving child full of life and a parent and child connected beyond comprehension.  Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and the thousands of scientists that came before and are today, a healthy man was able to give part of his liver to a dying child and save his daughter's life.  We were given back our child and the possibility of a long, healthy, and full life for her.

Thank you so much for all your kind words, warm thoughts, and extraordinarily generous help through out this difficult journey.  I would like to recognize today's hero Yael who drove to Pittsburgh yesterday, helped us finish packing, loaded her car with most of our belongs, drove them back to Blacksburg today, and unloaded everything on her own so it was waiting for us in our garage when we pulled up.  A special thanks to her husband Frederick and daughter Hannah who went shopping for us today so we'd have some real food in the refrigerator (and he also shoveled our humongous driveway 3 weeks ago).

What a blessing to be home and have a chance at a normal life again!