Day 1

Surprisingly I was able to sleep, probably thanks to pure exhaustion and ambien. I woke up to hear that a friend, CP, was on her way over with breakfast. And that she wasn't taking no for an answer. The tears kept coming, but it seemed so surreal. And then my phone started ringing. One of the horrible things about all of this is how much you actually have to DO immediately following a death. I got a call from a transplant coordinator who said that she had transposed the numbers in my phone number so she had been trying unsuccessfully to get in touch with me. The good news was that Gess's corneas were in good shape and could be transplanted. And there was a match already waiting for them. I consented (of course), but then had to answer about 10 minutes worth of questions about him and his death, etc.

Then, the head of the CF center called about donation for the rest of Gessner's body/organs. It is amazing to me how difficult it is to actually donate a person's body/organs. Multiple nurses and doctors made several phone calls each to find out the options. Really, it should be much easier than this! Finally it turned out that there were two options for me: an internal study regarding CT scans and working with a private company that contracts with hospitals (but not the UW). The private company couldn't tell me what organs they would be able to use and the procedure seemed difficult, so I opted for the internal study. Gessner would have approved--for the study they did a CT scan of Gess's lungs and then cut his lungs into pieces to compare the CT images with what was actually going on in the lungs. This is to help doctors interpret CT scans.

I was finally able to sit down to eat, but then got a call from my father-in-law and had to run. You see, I moved that day. Yep, moved.

We were living in an older house with lots of stairs and lots of dust. We knew that we should move, but never made definitive steps toward it because we just didn't have the time or energy. Enter Gessner's dad. He agreed that we should move so set out to make that happen. We (Tom and I) looked at a couple of places the week before and decided on an apartment that was near our old place, but new and with no stairs. We filled out the lease paperwork and shopped for new furniture while Gessner was in the hospital (but before the ICU), assuming that like always he would rebound. We decided on the first available move in day, which was November 3rd.

Gessner's dad dealt with the movers, etc., but I had to go over and actually sign the lease. The management was amazing about everything.

One of the movers actually told me that I looked like I needed to get some sleep. That's on my list of things not to say to people whose husband just died.

After signing the lease and some other apartment stuff I met with my mom, brother, and sister-in-law who had driven over the night before. We ended up going to lunch to distract ourselves.

It was a long, exhausting day. I was numb and in shock. I am so thankful for my friends that were there with me, reminding me to take it ten minutes at a time.