Life is a Journey...

For some reason when I hear the words "head stone" or "grave" they just seem so harsh and cold. I decided to use the words marker and spot instead. Garrett and I ordered Aimee's marker on the 15th and it should be in place by her birthday, April 12th. It will have a cameo (photo on tile) on it, but that takes longer to come in so I'm hoping that will be here by my birthday/Mother's day. The bronze marker sits on granite with a 4 inch border of the granite surrounding it. It will have a separate heart shaped granite above it with a vase on that. The image below shows what the basic shapes will be on the bronze. It will be a dark bronze with the text and other emblems polished to a lighter shiney bronze. It was really hard to pick everything out. It just felt so final. I feel weird saying that because death is the most final thing I can think of, but somehow picking out the marker made it even more real. When Aimee was a little girl and and I divo...

It's been nearly two weeks since I've posted. I have been avoiding posting because I've been struggling and missing Aimee so much lately. We've been blessed with so much kindness from family and friends. We have such a great ward family and they've been so supportive! Before Valentine's day one of the groups of Achievement day girls "hearted" our door and left some cupcakes, rang the doorbell and ran. It was so sweet and cute! (The pink and red hearts on the door were from the Achievement Day girls.) Then on Valentine's day my sister Katie had watched our kids while Garrett and I went on a date and we came home to more hearts from the young women. Earlier that day a sister in our ward dropped off a sweet note for me with a bag of cinnamon bears. I love cinnamon bears! Also Aimee's two friends "the Kelsies" dropped a Valentine by for me. It was a cocoa mug with a teddy bear in it with treats. It was so sweet of them! With all t...

Early in the morning Friday the 13th of January 2012 the doctor's administered phenobarbital to put Aimee into a deep coma in the hopes of reducing her brain pressure. At 6am Friday morning it hadn't helped to reduce the pressure so they stopped the medicine that was keeping her brain in it's deepest sleep. Phenobarbital takes at least 24 hours to leave the body and it has to be out of the system before the doctor's can do an apnea test to see if the patient can breathe on their own.

Today it has been one month since the most difficult day of my life. It may seem confusing that the 14th isn't the day that I would feel this way because that is the day my sweet Aimee's heart stopped beating and when the world marks her departure. For me it was when I received the witness that her spirit had left her body and her brain was beyond repair by human means. That is when I knew her struggle here was finished and that our Father in Heaven had called her home. I'm grateful that He allowed her to linger a little longer so her siblings and many others could come and hold her warm hand and tenderly kiss our sweet angel's cheek before her physical body went peacefully to it's mortal rest. The events of that day and those surrounding it keep playing through my mind. So many feelings, impressions, memories of words spoken, facial expressions, tender touches and so much more flood my memory. I feel sad, grateful, loved, carried and like my heart will break apar...

I intended to upload the Audio Recording of Aimee's Funeral shortly after the proceedings, but when I got the CD over a week and a half ago I just wasn't ready to listen to it yet. I remember feeling really uplifted and so grateful for the music and talks, but it seemed like listening to it would make her death more final somehow. I'm sure that doesn't really make sense, but I'm sure I'll be listening to it many times from now on. The recording was edited to start after the opening prayer, and end before the closing prayer. I removed most of the pauses between the songs and speakers, and it is a lower quality recording because it is about an hour and 9 minutes long so otherwise it would take a long time to download. The best way to listen to the recording is to save a copy of the recording to your computer you'll need to download it by right clicking on the link below and choosing "Save link as..." or "Save target as..." and then choo...

Today was a good day. It started off really early for me. I woke up at about 4:30 am and was wide awake. It definitely was not a usual start to my morning. After realizing I wasn't going to fall back asleep right away I stayed in bed and read "Goose Girl" until about 7 am. (Garrett is a much earlier riser than I am so he just got up for the day) Then I took an early morning nap for about 2 hours. I took the kids to swimming lessons and then came home to get ready to go to lunch with some friends from our ward. We had a good, long visit and yummy soup and salad at the Olive Garden. I came home and worked on some web design stuff for a bit and then my sister, Katie, and her kids came over. We cooked dinner together and then her husband Jeff got here and we all ate dinner together. We were going to go to the gym and have the guys watch the kids, but instead after we'd fixed, eaten and cleaned up dinner we all played hide and go seek in our basement in the dark. The p...

I'm finding that grief is much like an emotional roller coaster without the exciting thrills. The "highs" seem to be when I'm functioning on a somewhat "normal" level. I feel an almost literal struggle to emotionally climb to the top of the hill and then something seemingly insignificant is able to send me rushing downward fighting gravity again. Simple things like cancelling an appointment for Aimee that was scheduled months ago can cause the reality of her absence to smack me in the face. I went to the temple today and I didn't want to leave. I feel peace there, and yet I know I have other things I need to attend to as well. I don't want to miss spending time with my other children, but it is an effort to smile, let alone want to do something I would have previously enjoyed. I feel guilty I'm not more fun to be with, and yet I know it's somehow reasonable. I started reading The Birth We Call Death by Paul H. Dunn and Richard M. Eyre an...

We took our kids to the hematology department at Primary Children's Hospital yesterday. It was a really good appointment. I do feel better. I learned some things about factor V leiden (pronounced: factor 5 lie-den) and avoiding blood clots that I thought I'd summarize here. The first thing I found interesting is that activated protein C resistance is usually the first test used to see if someone may have a clotting disorder like factor V leiden. It is a less expensive way to find out if they need to do the more expensive test to find out if you have factor V leiden or another clotting disorder. If you test normal on the apc test (activated protein c test) then you don't need to do further testing. If you show a resistance in the apc test then they have other tests they can do to find out if you have a clotting disorder like factor V leiden. Secondly, each time a child is created they receive 1 gene from each parent for multiple things. Since I have factor V leiden heter...

Today I found out that I tested positive for the blood clotting disorder called Factor V Leiden. This is one of the blood disorders that Aimee was diagnosed with in the last few days of her life. Garrett and Victoria tested normal. Aaron also tested positive for Factor V Leiden and his Protein S numbers were low. We're seeing the head of hematology tomorrow morning at Primary Children's Medical Center. I'm hoping to get more answers and hopefully some reassurance that there is preventative treatment. My Mom found an online resource that I found very informative here: http://www.stoptheclot.org/documents/FactorVLeiden-lw.pdf I'm trying not to let my mind run wild with worries about these disorders. I've been reading other articles on the web and am not sure how to put this all together. I think I just need to trust the Lord and work to learn what I can do to help keep my family healthy. ~Wendee