100,001

I just logged onto LuLus blog and was the 100,001 visitor since last December! I never could have imagined when my sister started this to keep friends and family informed that it would serve as anything more than "keeping friends and family informed."



I'm grateful for the support we've had, it's been overwhelming. I'm grateful LuLu has been able to touch the lives of others with her fighting spirit and witness the miracles that have happened. I hope we've helped spread the word on the shortage of viable organs being donated and the importance of blood donation. Also, I think it's been theraputic for me to write and share-and to give a glimpse of what it's like to walk in an ill baby's shoes.



Thank you, thank you, thank you.



xoxo

news story

http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/Donor-transplant-brings-two-Utah-families-together/_A0j2PcCfEOkr4N_XWaMmw.cspx

click on the video tab to see the news clip (it takes a minute to load up)

xoxo

modern sick girl

my friend from jr. high and high school is gearing up for her 2nd kidney transplant. yes 2nd. and she's not even 30.

follow her blog @ http://www.modernsickgirl.blogspot.com/

she's positive, funny and witty. it's transplant time for someone, somewhere at all times. blows my mind.

xoxo

Growth Charts

It's been on my mental list to start making and selling these beauties for FOUR years, so here I am. FINALLY. Hoping to develop a little homebased-business....

These growth charts are solid wood (5 1/4 inches wide x 6 ft. tall), come with a hook on the back for hanging and will be a family treasure. I can customize colors or stencils to your liking.

These make great baby gifts, birthday gifts.....or Christmas gifts! My mom loves marking her grandkids on hers a few times a year too.

Email me @ elizabethbarnum(at)hotmail(dot)com Cost:50$, shippping 23$ or if you are local (SLC)we can arrange pick-up.

xoxo

Breaking News.....

Lu & Ashley's story will be on channel 4 tonight @10 & the article in Womans World Magazine comes out Monday the 15th....spread organ donation awareness, SPREAD!!

Here's an abc4 news link for a written version of the story:


http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/Donor-transplant-brings-two-Utah-families-together/_A0j2PcCfEOkr4N_XWaMmw.cspx

Happy Birthday Ashes

It's NOT my party, but I'll cry if I want to.

Cheers to Ashley, they say.

Sunday was Ashley's birthday.

What do you do for the girl that saved your baby?

How do you celebrate when it's such a tragedy that she is gone?

We, with her parents, friends and family scattered across the US decided to send balloons up to heaven. This will be a new family tradition.

13 from us- blue and purple, her favorite. She would have been a teenager. I remember how special turning 13 was. We sang Happy Birthday and let them go to her. Jonah really wanted to send her a cupcake but a smudge of frosting on his balloon had to do.

I know her parents wished to celebrate differently. I wish they could have. I wish she never got hit. We would have found a liver elsewhere.

They would have made it such a special day, cause that's just the kind of people they are. I imagine she would have gone horseback riding, been gifted a new pet and eaten lots of cake and ice cream and posed her pretty little self for many happy pictures.

We feel so lucky to have the connection we do with her and her family. It's healing for all of us. They LOVE LuLu and have taken her in like their own.

Happy 13th Birthday Ashes. I know you had a big old bash in Heaven with your Grandma and Jesus. We love you to pieces.

xoxo

lizzie

i'll never say knock on wood again...

We spent the day in the ER, expected to be admitted but were able to come home tonight. (an early Christmas miracle ;)) LuLu has had a stomach bug that come day 4 today left her lethargic and dehydrated. Her liver team takes things like this very seriously as imbalances for her can cause big problems. After labs and more labs she was able to receive two rounds of IV fluids and we were released. My mom and I celebrated over diet cokes and Cheetos, she even let LuLu have a sip.

Highlight Reel from this ER trip:

1- going home after, that's never happened before

2-when the nurse was doing vitals and needing to look in London's mouth with her little light, LuLu stuck out her tongue and put the compressor down on it and said "ahhh." She loves opening them and playing with them so the timing was just perfect. (she'd opened about 50 before they came in, my mom and I kept throwing them away as to not leave any evidence behind, but she still had the one in her hand)

3-When they drew her blood (for the second time this week) she didn't flinch, make a peep, move her arm, squiggle or wiggle. The nurse was dumb founded. She was given the honorary best patient ever award--which is a bit sad to me but hey-- we'll take whatever accolades we can get. The scarring up and down her arms testify to all her practice.

4-The YUMMY sandwich and bowl-of-beets from the U of U's cafeteria. It is much (much) better than PCMC's. Make a mental note. And of course the Diet Cokes courtesy of our nurse.

We are extremely grateful to be home...there really is no place like it. Our new house really (and finally) feels like home-sweet-home.

On a different note our sweet, sweet friend Lydia is back in the hospital with serious complications that are any liver mum's worst nightmare. Please pray for them, send them your love and good energy. Be so grateful if you are a parent of healthy children, never, ever take that for granted because you never know if one day that may change.

http://www.lydiasliverstory.blogspot.com/

xoxo
lizzie

Then & Now

Last Halloween was spent in the hospital, so no Halloween was a sweet as this year where we were together as a family. Primary Children's always does their best to make things as special as possible for their kids, but being tied to tubes, confined to her room and without her brother was one of several sad 2009 holidays. We look forward to Thanksgiving together this year, her birthday together this year and most of all Christmas together this year. We are on quite a streak with staying out of the hospital. Knock on wood. Knock on wood. Knock on wood.

Needless to say she loved Halloween in it's entirety. Neighbor party, Trunk or Treat and Halloween night Trick-or-Treating with cousins and friends. My mind wandered to the kids that were in the hospital this year and had hopes for a better one next year.

xoxo