It’s been a long time since I’ve updated you. Generally speaking that’s a good news because there’s not much to report on. Delia’s doctor’s appointments and blood draws have been stretched out to every month, which means we have very little to report on in between. Health wise, Delia is doing really well. We had our doctor’s visit last week and she’s gaining weight like crazy, all her numbers are in the normal category and she looks healthy. Her medications should be able to decrease soon and we’re officially six months post transplant.

Delia has to go to OHSU once a month to get a breathing treatment to keep her lungs healthy. This elevator is the highlight of her trip.

With the immediacy of her health out of the way we’ve had the wonderfully delightful opportunity (read with copious amounts of sarcasm) to start emotionally processing the last seven months. To add to the already present trauma, we lost Timber, our beloved dog, unexpectedly in August. Not just lost her, but got to sit by her bedside for a week while her kidneys shut down. Yep. Her kidneys failed. For no explainable reason. Two months after spending a month at my daughter’s bedside watching her organs fail, we got to sit next to her comfort and safety personified slowly leave us forever. It sucked. A couple of weeks after that the fires hit and darkness, of the unmetaphorical type, surrounded us and locked us inside. I’ll be honest, it’s been a dark, both literally AND metaphorically, couple of moths. My kids keep saying it’s the worst year of their lives and I keep responding with “and I hope it always will be.” In all of this there have been so many moments of beauty and laughter and light and I cling desperately to the reminder that “this present fallen world/moment is not all there is.”

Delia’s little memorial for Timber

We promised Delia in the hospital that she could have a puppy after all that terribleness she had gone through. Once we were being discharged we were told she couldn’t have a puppy until a year after her transplant. After Timber died we talked to her medical team and they recognized that her as a person dealing with all sort of terrible, sad, lonely, emotional things a puppy is probably the best medicine for her. So we got Oak last week. We chose the name Oak because we wanted to go with the tree theme (Timber), our house has over 50 oak trees (not counting the fairy sized oak forests anywhere an acorn has landed) and because oaks are traditionally the symbol of a sacred space of peace. Gabriel Oak is a character in one of my all time favorite books so I was not sad about the name either.

(Sorry about the directions. I uploaded and resent these photos to myself three times and they wouldn’t align correctly so I gave up.) 

Timber’s loss was so great that we needed a puppy and a kitten and baby goats to have any hope of filling some of the void she left. Goats are coming next weekend and will be helping to fulfill a life time desire of mine to homestead. The kitten is named Essex and she’s the most ridiculously hilarious animal I’ve ever come across. She loves to snuggle and has no subtly or stealth and therefore is very amusing to watch and has provided lots of laughter.

 

 

Other than pets and kitchen remodels (making progress!) fires, liver transplants, and a global pandemic, our life looks pretty similar to what it did before! I am very, very grateful that we already homeschooled and figuring out online school was not another thing we had to tackle this year.