Party Status...

The surgery party is still in full swing which is why I am writing this at Starbucks across the street in the middle of the day. Caffeine is a must for these sort of parties (thanks, Cassidy for my coffee). I wish I knew why hospitals make you so tired it is one of life's great mysteries. We are thankful to be out of ICU but our current set up is really similar and so we are hoping to more to a private room soon. We will still be in the PCU with all the monitoring but we will get a shower and couch of our own. Grace is more alert today and this afternoon we tried to substitute Tylenol with codeine for the morphine. I love that she is more alert, it is just hard to watch her be so scared. She doesn't seem to complain of anything hurting but she is really quiet and apprehensive and shakes her head "no" anytime walks in wearing scrubs. We keep telling her the worst is over and she will be ok; but, she isn't convinced of that just yet.

The exciting part of the party today (and I use the word party lightly) was that we gave her a bath in her bed and I was able to hold her for a few minutes. We also tried the plug on the trach and her oxygen levels didn't change so Praise God. I am not sure if they will try that with her sleeping yet but at least we know that her air way is clear enough for her to breathe on her own while awake and that is AWESOME. It is still too early to assess the speech benefits because of the swelling in the palate and the heavy secreations in the trach. How different her life will be when she can communicate clearly - as much as I want that I can barely wrap my mind around it!

So today has been forward progress. Our specific prayer request would be that she would not be so afraid and that she would be accepting of the trach!!! We also would ask that her speech show the dramatic improvement that this reconstruction allows.

Today we started learning a bit about how to care for the trach hands on and that will continue on for the coming week. We have a few classes and test we as parents must pass before we can go home with her. So we all have our work cut out for us.

Grace woke up this morning asking for "the Boy", aka Judd. We told was with with Aunt Sheri, Uncle Troy and the boys and so she settled for just calling him. Caroline is with the Weavers this weekend and enjoying being the only princess, I am sure. Judd and Caroline are doing great and having so much fun. We are so thankful to all of you who are walking throught this with us in so many ways. Instead of wishing to win the lottery everyone should wish to have our family and friends. Your love, support and encouragement make our hearts richer! That reminds me, my hubby said, "bring me back some bold coffee, sweetHEART". So I need to get right on that!