There’s no place like home

On June 3rd, we left San Diego for what we thought would be a quick trip to Stanford for a handful of routine visits.

101 days, 42 nights in the hospital, 7 days on Ecmo, countless procedures and a brand spanking new heart later, yesterday, we arrived HOME!

We left the hotel in Belmont Shores on Thursday, with our car loaded to the brim.

We drove 235 miles south to my parents’ place on the Central Coast, and spent the night with them.

It was so fun for them to see how great Bodie looked – and that, at a little over 5’7″ he’s now taller than Gigi!

We drove from there, home, stopping for lunch at our favorite spot in Santa Monica, the Annenberg Beach House.

(I used to take the kids there in the summer, so it was wonderful to have a moment to recapture a little bit of the summer we didn’t get to have!)

We arrived home Friday at 5:30 – the irony was not lost on me that Bodie, the lover of all things horror, arrived home on Friday the 13th!

The best part was coming home to Bodie’s best friends (and a couple of their amazing moms, my best friends, who orchestrated the whole thing)! They surprised him by hiding in his bedroom with balloons, flowers and an awesome Welcome Home sign!

The boys ended up staying all evening, catching up, eating pizza and swimming in the pool and jacuzzi. To get to see Bodie just melting right back into his friend group like he’d never left, like he hasn’t just had this crazy life saving summer, was just everything…

To say our animals were excited to see us was the understatement of the century. Bodie and I missed them SO MUCH! Maxi’s face says it all.

We are so beyond grateful to be home, and are so looking forward to this next stage of healing for Bodie! We cannot thank you enough for the prayers you have all covered Bodie with.

Please continue to pray for Bodie during this next stage of healing:

1. Please pray that his body continues to like his new heart. The scary thing about rejection is that it truly can happen at any time, without any symptoms. So please pray that his body continues to NOT reject and his follow up appointments all go well.
2. Please pray for his immune system. Bodie is and always will always be immuno-compromised. He will be on immunosuppressant meds for life to try to prevent rejection of his heart. This means that he’ll be more susceptible to catching germs, and is likely to get sicker when he does catch anything. His immune system is similar to that of someone going through chemo – but he looks really healthy from the outside, so it’s easy for people to dismiss it and think it’s ok to be around him if they’re sick. It’s 100% not ok to be around Bodie if you’ve been sick or around someone who is sick! This first cold and flu season will tell us a lot about how well his immune system can handle sickness. Some transplant patients more or less do ok with illness, and others end up in and out of the hospital with every sickness. We won’t know which camp Bodie will fall into until he starts being exposed to germs. Please pray that we can successfully prevent exposure to the most serious illnesses, and that he’ll handle the less serious ones ok.
3. Pray for back to school. The next big hurdle for Bodie will be transitioning back into school. He’s been doing his work remotely, but will be transitioning back to school on campus 2 days a week initially, and then full time next semester. Please pray his transition to high school goes well academically and that we can walk the fine line of allowing him to be as involved as he’d like on campus while still protecting him from germs.
4. Pray for the donor family. As we transition home, so full of hope and excitement for this next chapter in Bodie’s life, we know another family somewhere is still trying to transition to life without their loved one. Please continue to pray for grace and love for that family.