Wed Update - Abby Back Home

Written Wednesday Morning, September 27th, 2006

It seems the prayers are working. Yesterday around 1:30PM we got to take Abby home! I mentioned before that she doesn’t exactly bounce back too quickly from her surgeries. I think she heard me and wanted to prove her daddy wrong. Perhaps she was also tired of all the noise in the PICU and felt bad for mommy who hadn’t gotten ANY sleep in two days. When we got home mommy and Abby went straight up stairs and fell asleep together for over 3 hours. Unfortunately, that was the last we would see of calm little Abby. The night time was a bit rough.

Once the pain meds wore off, Abby was very fussy and cried a lot. She was also very constipated and that only fueled the fire. We can only give her Tylenol every 4 hours and that just wasn’t doing the trick. Finally, in the early hours of the morning Abby seemed to settle down a bit on her own and fell asleep but the trouble didn’t stop there. As you may or may not know, we still have to hook Abby up to a heart monitor when she sleeps to make sure she is breathing. Abby has been doing great in this department and it’s only gone off once or twice since she’s been home. But last night it went off, and then it went off again, and again, and again… Abby was holding her breath a lot last night for some reason so each time that insanely loud monitor would beep, Kelly sprang out of bed to rub Abby’s back and get her to breathe. We’re hoping this
This morning Abby finally went poop (with some assistance), and we gave her some more Tylenol and that combo seemed to help. As I sit here and type this on my laptop, Abby and Mommy are finally asleep again after a very trying night.

It’s been a long 3 days. Abby will be sore for a few more days we’re told but overall everything went very well. The shunt is working well now and that fluid build up in the front part of her brain was also fixed.

Abby is very lucky to have all of you praying for her. It is evident that prayer works and I thank each of you for all of them.

Have a great Wednesday.

Ryan, Kell, and Abby