Feb 14, 7:16am, The cooler, A Sacred Moment

Still in surgery. And doing well...I guess. After dropping off our Princess we finished cleaning out Room 3241. There was definitely some mixed emotion there. Many memories in that room we called home. Now it is just another hospital room. Hopefully we will get it back when we move back to 3 West, but probably not.

We filled the suburban and several garbage cans with memories and stuff and have been sitting/sleeping in the 2nd floor waiting area.

At 2:30 am we received the call that the procurement team had seen the heart and it was a go. That was the last hurdle before the transplant.

Slept a little bit, I think.

At 5:30 am we had a very emotional and humbling experience. We received the call that the donor heart was arriving. At 5:50 we watched a carrier holding a blue cooler with red lettering walk by.  It read, "HEART, DONATED HUMAN ORGAN/TISSUE for TRANSPLANT".  We watched as the carrier quietly walked to the elevator and down the same hallway Lindsey had gone down.  It felt somewhat like a funeral procession, but it was much more than that.  I was not prepared for the feelings and emotions that follow. There was a spiritual reverence of seeing that cooler, and what the cooler represented.  A parents child's heart was actually in the cooler. They had made the ultimate gift. We have prayed for that family and this moment every day for the last 240 days. And now, by the grace of God, was being transplanted into our Princess.  There was such a reverence in seeing that.  We quietly followed the carrier to the surgery nurses station, to the doors where we last hugged Lindsey Lou.  They transferred the cooler to one of the surgery team members and he walked through the doors.  At the nurses station, there was a monitor of a surgery in progress. When I looked closely I could see a Berlin Heart and a blanky. There she was, this was the moment, she was actually receiving gift of life. The emotions overwhelmed me and the tears began to flow.  The true reality of this sunk deep.

Now it is 7:45, and Dr. Ashok just came by for an update. The heart is in and beginning to wake up and pump on it's own. They are doing an echo to monitor it's progress. As the heart wakes up, they will begin to ween her from the ECMO heart/lung bypass machine and close her chest.  Could take up to a couple of hours.

Stacy just went back to check on Sierra. Megan and Hunter are off to school, and Gage is having a good time.

 I struggled with posting this picture, but it is such an emotional experience I didn't want to forget it. The feelings of gratitude, love and respect for the donor family are overwhelming.  I have no idea how we could ever thank them. We have prayed for them for months and here it is. God bless that family.