Christmas Eve and Christmas Day…

Kerrie had a pretty active day with lots of visitors.. and I even got a present from some of the staff. They were able to replace my recliner ( That wouldn’t stay reclined) with a chair/bed. This one is very similar to the one at Henry Ford, but it has a REAL mattress. Santa Claus came early for me… and I was truly grateful to them!

After a busy day of visitors Mom, Kerrie and I settled in to watch a movie and relax. Kerrie knew exactly what she wanted to watch and searched through the TV Guide until she could find it. Wasn’t hard… it was on 3 different channels 🙂 Of all the movies Kerrie could have wanted to watch her choice was It’s a Wonderful Life

Believe it or not, Mom and I have never seen the entire movie all the way through… so this was a first for us.

After Mom went home, Kerrie and I started watching
A Christmas movie and Kerrie quickly fell asleep. Before I called it a night, I decided to decorate her dry erase board with a Christmas Message for her. I am lacking the artistic skills from my mother’s side of the family, so the Christmas tree I drew was a little lopsided, and looked like it had been drawn by a third grader, but I did my best… then wrote a simple message saying “Merry Christmas Kerrie”. Just a little note to make her smile when she woke up.

6:00am and I’m sleeping very nicely, in my wonderful new bed, when I hear “Jenny.. Jenny.. I like your note!”

When I asked her how she knew I wrote it, and maybe it was Santa, she gave me one of her dumb looks and just said, “I’m not that stupid! 🙂

She was a little upset when Physical Therapy walked through the door. She thought she would get Christmas Day off.. but her insurance requires PT 7 days a week, so no break for her. They went easy on her though and didn’t work her as hard as they normally do.

Our Uncle Dave, Aunt Karol, and cousins Alicia and Heather brought Kerrie the box of everyone’s cards, stories and letters and Kerrie was thrilled with it. She just kept sorting through everything and saying “Wow”. She tires pretty easily, so it will take us a day or two to get through everything.. but they really are wonderful. Anything that makes my sister smile is wonderful, but these are really special. Aunt Karol made a beautiful, gold halo for Kerrie to wear… and she really did look like an angel with it on.

I think her favorite thing was the Penguin candy dispenser our Aunt Michelle sent. You load the candy in the penguin and when you hit the penguin on the head a piece of candy comes out it’s rear… She was laughing so hard, and kept hitting it and handing out candy. When we were sitting with our uncle Dave, and his family, she kept trying to eat the candy but I wouldn’t let her. Then, when I turned my back, she tried to shove a piece under her mask and in her mouth before I could catch her. I grabbed it just in time. Once she can swallow better we’ll let her have a piece. But she had fun with that penguin all day and her friends started calling it penguin poop candy. Every time someone new came in she offered them a piece. Pretty funny.

Ron, Alisa, TJ and Robyn joined us at the hospital aroud 5:00pm and when Ron walked in the room she said, “Merry Christmas. Where’s your son?” I reminded her he had a daughter too and she said, “I want to see you daughter, but where’s your son?” TJ wasn’t allowed in the Bone Marrow Unit at Henry Ford, so Kerrie has only seen him once in almost 6 months. He walked in the room and she just could not stop smiling and could not stop staring at him. She was so happy to see him I think it was her best present that day!

I reminded Robyn that Kerrie wanted to see him so bad, because she hadn’t been allowed to and that Robyn had been allowed to visit her. She said she knew this and understood it. What a great niece!

Christmas was nice and it was wonderful to be able to have what I wanted most of all!

Now if I could have gotten her to wear a big, red bow on her head.. with a tag that said “To Jenn”.. it would have been perfect 🙂