Nightly update

Tonight when I placed a keepsake heart in Christi's hand she immediately started coughing and gagging. It was a horrible few moments we felt helpless and it felt so wrong to do nothing. We didn't call for help we just comforted her and told her we loved her. She regained control of her breathing and is resting comfortably now. Angela has with the help of some very resourceful CHOP nurses made some plaster casts of Christi's hands tonight. We played the High Schoold musical DVD just in case she was listening.

We ate like kings today. We had Kerschner meatballs for supper Shayla is doing fine. She had a good weekend, according to her, with her friend. When I called tonight the first thing she said was “Can I talk to Christi”. She really wanted to have a rather mundane conversation about some passwords on a Neopets account, yet, it still turned me into a sobbing sack of … Here is the deal, Shayla never has to remember anything because Christi is always there to remember for her. They refer to it as Shayla’s “savings bank”.

Any image that Shayla wants to remember forever she tells Christi to put in her “savings bank”. Since Christi has an extrodianary memory this seemed like a good plan to the girls. Now as I have feared we are starting to see that their lives were so interwined that little Shayla is going to have a piece of her die with Christi. This makes me so incredibly sad.

Dr. Maris said that what keeps him up at night is the concern that "Christi develops an infection and lands in the ICU or a scary event occurs like internal bleeding" His goal has been to lead us to a "soft landing". What keeps me up at night is that I may only remember how Christi died and not how she lived. I want to banish the memory of these past few weeks and only feel and relive the precious nine years that proceeded them.

Lord I pray: that if you are indeed a merciful god then take her tonight.

Shayne