I'm amazed

At how Ben is progressing. I know he gets frustrated the he's not back to 100% already but he's come so far from the morning after transplant.

I walked in to his ICU room on Monday morning and he was in the bed, tubes all over the place, in both arms, up his nose, down his throat, a port in his neck with six lines running out of it, not to mention the tubes covered by his blankets. Monitors were beeping and there was that awful sound of the breathing machine. His eye lashes were still caked with stuff from taping them shut during surgery, he had iodine spots left on him, and the Ben I know and love was no where to be found in that room. The ultrasound tech was doing a scan on him, searching for signs of another blood clot in the new liver. If one was found, he'd have to be taken back down to surgery and opened back up. As she was doing the scan, I found one clear spot on his hand and wrapped my finger around one of his. I did our "I love you" squeeze and got nothing back. His hands were twitching, a side effect of all of the meds they were pumping him full of and he was gagging on the breathing tube. I don't know how I held it together standing there. I've never been so sad and so scared and felt so lost and helpless in my life. There was nothing I could do to protect him from this and nothing I could do to protect "J" if he didn't live through this. We have to believe that things will work out and people will recover but I'm all too aware that not everyone's story ends happily.

So thankfully, that morning was the worst. Ben would argue with that point I'm sure. He'd say "no, the days full of so much pain were the worst." But he didn't see what I saw. And so now, when I look at him snuggled up on the couch while I'm washing the billions of dishes that he and "J" have used in the past 24 hours I'm so thrilled. He's alive. He's here. He came back from an incredible journey. And at this moment, I have everything I need.