Moving to Houston and leasing an apartment is a big step for us. Especially signing a lease before Amanda is actually listed for a new heart. I have felt a prompting to get this apartment, though. It will make things so much easier for us while Amanda is receiving rejection treatments and with the current battle with fluid retention. I will have a place to sleep besides a recliner, a place to cook, and prepare meals, a place where Tank can join us, and a place we can drive to and call home only blocks away after a hospital discharge or outpatient treatments. I’m looking forward to an easier life as we face this battle and an apartment with our own furnishings will help.
I will eventually make a seniority move to work from San Antonio to Houston. Instead of staying in the hotel as we typically do, I will drive from the hotel to our apartment to be with Amanda. This way I will only be gone for 12-15 hours or so before I am back. The commute will be killer, though, a seven-hour round trip. However, that is better than going from Houston to home to take a train to west Texas and back! As my mother always said “You can beat a bear with a switch for a little while!” This will be temporary and as Psalms 30:5 says weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. This night may be long, but we know joy eventually comes! We’ve seen God do great things with our lives and we’ll see Him do it again. I look forward to rejoicing on a celebration trip in the future.
We had a good bit of furniture, enough to fill an enclosed trailer to the brim, but we still need a few things to get us started. I refrained from taking a lot from home because we still plan to go there when health permits. We will have two homes and need things in both places to keep from packing a ton back and forth each trip. The duration of our apartment life will be up in the air, likely six months if I were guessing, but if it is difficult to find a heart, it could be much longer.
Asking for help is hard for me. At the urging of some friends, I’ve created an Amazon wish list of things we’ll need while living the city apartment life. I like the idea of a wish list. It gives everyone the option to help with something specific. I created a wish list after the first transplant while we were living in a hotel room. It was such a blessing with everyone pitching in to set up the hotel room.
We need a lot of basics besides the furniture we are taking up. The wish list has a variety of things, all that will need to get one way or another, and sooner or later. I’ve grouped them according to the rooms in the apartment or their uses. Each item has a note, if you’ve followed us for any time, you know I like to joke, so I had fun with some of the notes!
The list is set to ship directly to our apartment. I already have a few things headed that way now scheduled to arrive as we get there. I checked with the leasing manager about the safety of packages, and she said not to worry. The complex is fenced with coded gate access. She mentioned they’ve never had a problem with porch pirates and if we were worried to call, and they’d put the packages in our apartment or hold them at the office. Feel free to send Amanda a card, too. Our apartment address is: 2825 Bellefontaine St Apt 128A Houston, TX 77025
Feel free to share this post or the list as you see fit. You can find the Amazon wish list here: Amanda’s Change of Heart. Your help is so much appreciated, thank you!