Abby's Road to Recovery!

Its been just about 24 hours since Abby came out of surgery and never in a million years would we have expected that she would have come this far!

She was pretty sedated until probably about 4am so she would wake up for a minute or two and go back to sleep so Pat and I took turns sitting with her so that she would never wake up and not find us there.

She had a low grade temperature which they said was normal when you are on the heart/lung machine and that it typically goes away after about 24 hours or so.  When she came out of surgery she had 2 drain tubes, a central line, a line in both hands and one in her foot and I am happy to say that as of about an hour ago, they are all gone with the exception of one in her hand which is there strictly to administer the antibiotic and pain medication if needed - she hasn't even had any of that since 5 am.  Her fever is now gone as well. 

The only discomfort she has had at all has been from the drain tubes and from what we've been told that is typically the only pain that kids complain about, so now that they are out she has no pain whatsoever.  In anticipation of taking them out, she wasn't able to drink anything so she has been crying a bit that she wanted something to drink - she's now had 2 glasses of apple juice and 3 popsicles.

She is still quite sleepy but has bursts of spunk that come out too - she even stuck her tongue out at me this morning, not sure why, but i've never been so happy to see her sassiness come thru as I was today.  Right now she is dozing off watching Sponge Bob.

The care here has been beyond wonderful - these are truly the greatest people you'd every want to meet, even down to the custodial staff, even they stop to say hello to her.