April 14th: A good day for recovery

Psalm 30:5..........but Joy comes with the morning!
Well we are in much better spirits today. We know that there is still a long road ahead of us but the urgency and strain have been relieved by the surgery.

Charlotte is quite still today, the morphine is keeping her quiet. But each time she wakes up she makes a little contact with us. She nods in response when we ask about juice or her soother. Her right leg has responded well, it already seems to have the range of motion that her left has. Her right arm has more movement than before, but is not nearly as strong as her left.

We were moved out of ICU around 3:30 as she was stable enough to head back to our regular ward. All of her wires and tubes have been removed except for the main one in her pelvis. This has made her much more touchable and huggable again. It nice not to worry about her yanking at everything. Her arms are still restrained with ties to either side of the crib so she cant get herself into trouble.

At supper time she had some juice and soup squeezed into her mouth that has stayed down, looks like tomorrow she will be able to have food again if she feels up to it. We got a couple of big smiles at supper time from her, mostly they were for her daddy- im trying not to be jealous. Amazing to think she could go through all that yesterday and have a smile for us today already! Her sweet little face is very swollen, her left eye is swollen shut and her ear is poking out at a funny angle (normal Im told.) But it should all go down within a week. The doctor thought she may even be walking around by the weekend!

I think she is starting to have little nightmares, she will be so calm and at rest one minute... and then all four limbs suddenly sticking up flailing, her heart races and she gets super panicked sounding. The first time (who am I kidding... still EVERY time) she did it we panicked. (Thought it could be a seizure or something.) She is fairly easy to calm down afterwards, just needs a snuggle and little song. We think its just nightmares but even at that it is keeping her from getting the total rest that she needs.

Time for us to try and get some rest too.
Love Allison