2nd Anniversary and another night of sleeping in a hospital

The before shot of her little teeth/gums. I brought Jensen's John's camera to the hospital and there were a bunch of pictures taken by my little photographer.  All of the pictures were taken by him previous to our hospital stay (except for the ones I took today.) You can kind of see her gums in this shot... buckle up for the after shot.

After shot: picture taken a few hours ago. Mia doesn't seem to be improving.  She still hasn't eaten anything and her gums look terrible!  Even though she feels like garbage she is still willing to say "cheese."  You can see from the picture how gnarly her gums are.  They have taken over her teeth... it is so sad and I can't believe the swelling hasn't gone down at all.  When I lift her lips, her gums bleed, then she cries.  I am pulling for her teeth to come back tomorrow- and hopefully she can eat something.

Her drug level came back really high so we are pulling back on her dose.  Also, her nutrafill numbers are way down too- so we are also addressing that.  It's funny how I am thrown right back into hospital lingo...It seems like a lifetime ago that I could speak in medical terms.  I am still struggling on the converting of her temp...but am slowly remembering.  We had a special visitor tonight... not usher... but uncle Dillon.  He brought me some super tasty Thai food- Thanks uncle D! 

A few of you have asked if I knew how she got it. The answer is no, but I learned from ID (infectious disease) that she most likely picked it up the week of Halloween.  It takes a week to incubate so they are thinking that she got it from someone who was sloughing off the virus.  They also said they might not have even had a cold sore at the time, but have had them in general.  We went to a few parties for Halloween and I'm guessing it was from one of those.  We will definitely be taking it easy on the outings.  After this virus (and hospital stay) we will not be headed to any parties any time soon :-)  

Onto the anniversary- We were not able to send off balloons today because latex is not allowed in the hospital, but we will send our love notes to heaven when we get home.

Mia has had her new heart for 2 years!  We are so blessed, and so grateful to her donor family.  Mia's donor is our angel and we think of him often.  I wish I could give her donors mom a hug today. I wish I could give her a hug everyday. Although Mia is going through a rough time right now, she has had the best life post transplant.  She is the happiest little two year old.  A true joy.  She was given a great heart, a perfect heart, and that heart sustains the sweetest little life.

Her anniversaries are always difficult days because we celebrate her life, but somewhere in Texas a mom is remembering a terrible loss.  We celebrate his life too. We love him.  He is our angel- and we are as grateful today as we were the moment we were blessed with that precious, perfect heart!