For the past 3 weeks, my life has been filled with watching kids fight to stay alive. It just doesn't seem fair. I've spent a lot of time talking to other parents that have been in the hospital for twice or three times as long as we have and who have no end in sight. It makes my heart sad. And honestly, if I'd allow it, this could make me really angry. So I've had to learn to see beyond this sadness and be thankful that God's allowed me to experience this part of life.
I began to learn, at the young age of 16, how precious life is and how quickly it can be taken away- when my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. After my mom died - I kinda thought that I had a golden ticket to get through the rest of life because our family had gone through enough. And then Addie was born and I knew my theory was void.
So, I've learned to be thankful for every thing that life throws at me. To hold our good days tightly and find value in the bad ones. To trust that God's allowing every single I've walked through into my life for a purpose. I may not always be happy about the situation I am in, but if I hold tight to Him - He will carry me through it.
To be very honest, there were more days than not, since we transplanted Addison, that I wondered if we made the right decision. We watched her fight like a little warrior in battle. We watched her cry from pain and were not able to do anything to make her feel better. We watched her feel crazy in her head because of the narcotics she was taking. We watched her body shake uncontrollably from the new meds she needs to take to keep her new liver happy. This journey has been hard. In fact, about a week after Addie's transplant, I was walking to the hospital from the Ronald McDonald house (it was my night to get some sleep in a bed) and just feeling angry with myself for making the decision to transplant her. Almost regretting our decision. And as I walked into to Addie's hospital room, the surgeon that transplanted Addie followed me into her room. He told us that he finally got to see Addie's old liver. And it was ugly. Not only was it 4 lbs (a normal 5 year old liver is around 2 lbs) and huge - it also had scar tissue all the way through it and was beginning to cirrhos. He said "you choose to do this transplant at the perfect time. If you would have waited any longer, her arteries and ducts would have also started to cirrhos - making her transplant an extremely hard procedure." Not to mention, that she would have started to become a very sick little girl. I looked at Ben and shook my head. So we really had no choice. We made this decision because God knew this is what her little body needed and this was how He was going to save her. Her metabolic doctor's told us from the time she was a baby - that she would need a transplant some day. They just wanted her to be older before we went down this path. So we made this decision several month ago because this was the path that was laid out for Addie. And not because WE said so.
So the icing on the cake was as we actually got to see Addie's old liver this week. We got to see first hand how awful her liver really was. And just how much she needed a new one. Thank you God for your faithfulness!
Look at the size of this belly. It was ALL liver.
We truly have no idea how it all fit in there. The surgeon said he had to cut her belly 60% bigger than what he initially thought, just so he could get it out.
This the entire liver
The liver on the left is a normal, healthy 5 year old liver. The liver on the right is Addie's (its actually just a slice).
Addie touched it!!
And when Ben held her old liver up to her, it becomes clear how much space that thing must have taken up.
Even Alivia got to join in the fun
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