Update on Annika:

Whoo-hooo!!! Little Anni (my eight year old niece who recently had a liver transplant) is OUT OF THE HOSPITAL!!!! She isn't allowed to travel back home to Normal, Illinois, yet. She still needs to be CLOSE to the hospital...but, she got to move across the street to the Kohl's House today!!! (The Kohl's House is a wonderful place that serves as home away from home for the families of children who are hospitalized at Children's Mercy in Chicago. It also serves as kind of a Half-way House for kids who are doing well enough not to be in the hospital, but aren't well enough yet to be in a different town than the hospital is in (ie their OWN homes).) She should, also, be a lot safer from hospital-type germs living in Kohl's house rather than staying in the hospital.

Her legs are still extremely weak, and, since she is on heavy blood thinners, she is confined to a wheelchair for now to protect her from falls. She will receive physical therapy while she is staying at the Kohl's House.

Another exciting thing is that the doctors have potentially narrowed down what has caused the four major blood clots she has suffered in the past (one of which caused her first liver transplant to fail two months after she had received the liver and one which caused her second liver to fail two years after that second transplant).

Annika has bounced back from this third transplant better and quicker than she ever has before! And, now that they are beginning to pinpoint the clotting disorder she has that was responsible for the failure of the first two transplants, everything looks so much more hopeful for this transplant to do well and to last!