A good night (and a REALLY LONG post)

Here's a picture of Umit putting on Sumana's nerve sensors.

Here she is waiting for surgery . . .what could she be doing???

Dr. Sanders drawing on her back--about a 4-6 inch cut line over her August incision.

This is what I saw when I went into the recovery room! What a gift!

After several barfing episodes, Sumana settled down and had a really good night. I woke her up at 3 am for albuterol and cough assist. She got a lot of gunk up . . . which made her mom happy in a gross sort of way. She slept the rest of the night and then got up BY HERSELF and went downstairs (BY HERSELF) to watch her favorite morning TV shows.

She is sitting so straight and tall. Last night as she climbed up the stairs we noticed how tall and straight she looked. This VEPTR contraption is really amazing!

Now that I've had some sleep I can recount the chaos of yesterday. Last night it was too close and too stressful to relive. In a nutshell, Dr. Sanders reserved a PICU room for Sumana to spend the night in. We got that call at 7:30 yesterday saying the surgery might be cancelled because there were no PICU rooms available. By 9:30 a room WAS available and surgery went as planned. The chaotic part started after surgery. Since she came off of the ventilator pretty quickly, 'SOMEONE' called the recovery room and said she didn't need a PICU room.

The really crazy part was that Dr. Sanders, the anesthesiologist and the attending PICU doctor expected her to go to the PICU for observation. Our recovery room nurse was livid when she found out about the mix up. In the meantime, someone else had taken Sumana's PICU room. So for almost an hour we didn't know WHERE Sumana was going to go. Finally, they said she was going to a 'regular' room, but there wasn't one available yet. They moved Sumana BACK to the pre-surgery area to wait for the room. By this time I was remembering what it's like on the 'regular' floor and as I said last night, I didn't want to do it. It may have been a purely selfish act, but if Sumana wasn't in danger I wanted to go home.

Since I told the rest of the story last night, you're up-to-date. Oops. I didn't tell you that Sumana climbed right into the big green van at the hospital or that she walked all the way up the sidewalk and stairs to get into the house last night. AND, I forgot to tell a great SUMANA STORY: She has met so many techs, nurses and doctors over the last year that she remembers them and they remember her. She told me yesterday that it was nice to know everyone in the operating room. Dr. Chen was the only new face, but he and Sumana hit it off right away. There was Umit, her nerve monitoring buddy, Dr. Sangeev (her Chennai, India 'brother'), Nurse Maryanne and Sumana knew Dr. Sanders would be on the way. Before surgery I reminded her of her favorite scary-time Bible verse: Jesus said, "I will never leave you or forsake you.' Between the Bible verse and all of her hospital friends, she was very at ease.

If you're still hanging in there, I'll tell one more SUMANA STORY: She amazes all the medical personnel she meets. She can readily tell her name, complete birthdate, allergies, type of test or surgery she's having and how she likes to go to sleep for surgery. Dr. Chen laughed out loud when she said she wanted the mask with the chapstick first, then he could put in the IV. Dr. Sangeev first introduced her to the box of scented chapsticks in May '09. She can choose her favorite scent and they coat the mask with it and as she goes to sleep she smells strawberries instead of the yucky gas smell. Then later, of course the recovery nurses were blown away that she was going home . . . especially after the whole PICU mix-up.

Well, that's the long, drawn-out version. I'm going to keep up the albuterol and cough assist every 4 hours today, maybe tonight and tomorrow. If she's up to it this afternoon, we'll go to see Miss Kristen for her post-op re-evaluation so she can start up PT again next week. Thanks for your continued prayers! God is answering them in a BIG way!

PS-- Sumana just said, "Thanks for begging them to let me come home. It's much quieter here!"