Abby's Recovery

It's hard to believe that we were still in the hospital a week ago.  You'd never know by looking at her that she just had open heart surgery!  I'd say she is 80% back to normal and would probably be more so if we'd let her, but we do have to try and hold her back from doing all of the crazy things she'd like to be doing.  Her recovery has been nothing short of a miracle, never would we have thought she would be doing so well this quickly. 

Up until today she's been walking a little hunched over - I don't think she likes her shirt rubbing against the incision and she is extremely self conscious of it which I never would have expected.  She doesn't want to look at it and doesn't want anyone else to either.  A couple of nights she actually slept in the shirt she was wearing that day because she got so upset when I tried to take it off.  I felt so bad the other day when she said that if someone doesn't like her they would say "ha ha Abby has an owie" and I told her that no one doesn't like her, everyone loves her and she said "but someone that doesn't know me might not like me and they would say that".  Where in the world did that come from?

Today we went to Allouezfest and she got to see her friend Ava and later she got a visit from her friend Cece and she was thrilled, they played dressup for a while and even played a game of croquet! She'll still be home for a couple of weeks until she is healed and we are comfortable sending her back to daycare so it's nice when she gets these special little visits!

Abby's Home!

Yeah!  We are all back home as of late yesterday afternoon.  Abby is doing incredibly well - way better than we could have ever dreamed or hoped for.  Even at the hospital yesterday morning she still wasn't really eating much, didn't want to go potty and would only take a few steps - the minute we got in the car she completely changed - She was singing along with the songs I put on my ipod for her and wanted a Happy Meal.  When we got home, she wanted to go see her new garden and she walked all the way there and back holding our hands but within about 10 minutes she was no longer holding on and was asking to ride her bike!  Needless to say we said "NO"!  Then she went over to the neighbors to see their dog, she plopped down on the grass to play with her and then got up without any help or even a wince.  She had a great nights sleep too - no one coming in to take her temp or check her blood pressure, she was as relaxed as she could be sleeping with her arms up over her head like she always does - except that I had thought that that was supposed to hurt - but not her!

We may have a very hard time trying to restrict her the next two week, but i'd say shes about 80% back to normal.  She even smacked her brother this morning when he tried giving her a kiss - such brotherly/sisterly love!

Thank you again for all your well wishes and prayers for her - they definately worked!

The Healing Power of Family

Today, my parents, Logan, my brother Tim and his fiance Lisa spent the afternoon with us.  You should have seen the smile on her face when she saw them - especially her big brother.  He even got her to go down to the playroom in a wheelchair and then for a ride outside in the healing garden.  Before they left, we reminded her that she had one more goal to meet today in order to get her 5th sticker and therefore her prize and she did it!  While it was only a few steps she still did it and has gained some confidence back so Fluffy the white guinea pig will soon be joining our family.  Now to keep her walking I told her that she could earn toys for her guinea pig by continuing to keep trying - this could get expensive, but it's worth it!

Ups and Downs of Recovery

Abby was moved about 1pm yesterday from the CICU to the step-down unit which basically means that she no longer needs the 1 to 1 care.  Obviously we were thrilled that she didn't need the care, but the first quite a few hours weren't real thrilled with the lack of care either.  We'd gone from such exceptional care, someone always there telling you what was going on, what their goals were etc to pretty much nothing.  We knew that we needed to get her up and out of bed, but that's not such an easy thing when a child has just had open heart surgery and we kind of felt like we had been dumped and didn't have the support we had in the CICU.  We obviously were worried that we could hurt her, but thanks to my friend, Molly (thanks, Molly) she convinced us that we can't really hurt her. Abby was refusing to take any medicine, and we basically had to hold her down to give it to her, she wouldn't drink and we didn't know if she should be eating or if it was ok that she not.  Finally we asked and were told it was ok that she not eat but that the sooner she was up the better, finally someone came in to help us get her up and get her to the bathroom, but she was getting herself so worked up she got sick a little bit.  So not only was she scared to get up, but she's also never thrown-up either so that had her pretty upset.  She went back to bed and we decided not to push it any more for the day because she was getting REALLY mad at us - i've never heard "I hate you, you're mean" so many times in my life!   Her pain seemed to be in her back which was from laying around and we couldn't convince her that if she got up it would be better so we figured tomorrows a new day and maybe we'll get more help.

Later last night we made a call to my parents so she could talk with them and with Logan and Logan answered the phone - she had the hugest smile on her face when she heard his voice, it made me cry!  Talking to them really cheered her up.  She had a pretty quiet night and slept fairly well.

Thankfully, this morning she seemed to be doing a lot better, she ate breakfast, was drinking and this awesome therapist came in and was the first person that Abby didn't scowl at!  She worked on movement of her legs and arms and basically made her sit up, put her feet over the edge of the bed and walk to Dad in the chair and she did it!  She's been sitting in the chair every since!  We were just having such a hard time reasoning with her that we've realized we just need to make her do it and know that it will be ok!

Our goal for this afternoon is to get her walking around the room and hope that a visit from Ama and Papa and Logan will help make that happen.  She's been crying a lot because she wants to go home and because she misses Logan.

The cardiologist came in the room a little earlier and says that if she stays as good as she is today we will be going home tomorrow!  Obviously we know she'll recover much quicker at home, but its also a bit scary.  Pat's pretty tough with her if need be because she can be a stubborn little thing and if she doesn't want to do something, she's not doing it.  He finally told her that if she doesn't get out of bed and walk, she's never going to leave - nice one Dad, that's a little harsh! 

A co-worker friend of mine had given her a school book that had a sticker chart in it so we figured out some goals that we could work on today and that she would get a sticker each time she did one of them and once she got 5 stickers she would get a prize.  We put on there:  eat breakfast, sit up in bed, move to the chair, go potty and walk around the room - so far she has 3 stickers and  I have a feeling we are going to be getting a guinea pig in the very near future - he already has a name "Fluffy".

So, hopefully my next update will be that we're coming home!  Thank you again to everyone for all of your love and support and your prayers.

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. 

Post-Surgery Update

The nurse came out and updated us at least every hour and she went on and off the heart and lung machine very well and they were able to repair the hole with her own tissue rather than a synthetic material which is great.  She was in surgery for a little under 4 hrs.  They let us spend a few minutes with her before they took her up to the CICU and got her settled there.  After about an hour we were able to go up and now are with her all the time.

She is still sedated, she did start to wake up a little once and was very agitated and was trying to pull the canula out of her nose.  My guess is that she didn't know where she was and the effects of the medication made her very anxious.  They gave her a little morphine and she was out again.  They're going to try to just keep her sedated thru the night so she can rest more easily.  She's having very little ouput thru her drainage tubes so its possible they may even come out tomorrow.  The Dr. also said that come tomorrow morning they may be able to start removing some of the lines she currently has in. Now its on to recovery!

Surgery Day

We got to the hospital about 6am today to register and have her temp and blood pressure taken again.  All she kept saying was "I don't want any medicine" so we told her it was just a little juice and she would only have to take it one time.  She also wasn't very happy that she had to change out of her jammies and wear a hospital gown.

Giving her her DSi last night was a saving grace because it kept her really occupied and her mind off of everything.  They gave her some Versid (sp?) and about 30 minutes later, she was loopier than loopy.  We were so worried that she would be scared when they took her and I knew i'd be a blubbering fool so it was actually really kind of nice that once it kicked in she was definately in her "happy place".  When they took her from us to take her into the operating room, she was laughing hysterically and asking me why I had 3 eyes.

So, now the long wait begins - they hope to be finished by about noon and said they would be out at about 9 to give us an update.  At that time, the surgeon will be about ready to go in and do his part.  They came out after about 15 minutes and told us they had given her anesthesia, put in the breathing tube and ivs.  I believe the next step is putting her on the heart lung bypass machine at which time Dr. Woods will come in and do the repair - the repair is only supposed to take him about 35-45 minutes.  Will update when we know more.