DAY SIX-FOOD!!

This was my nurse, Beth (aka future spin instructor) . She saw me when I was at my worst and when I was at my best. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dinner

Ice cream

Package from church. Thanks!

This is how our day started before Dr. Levitt said I could eat.

Cannot type much tonight. We leave tomorrow! Chaning turned my keyboard into a calculator while I was talking to her nurse. Trying to google how to turn it off when the keys come out as numbers doesn't give good answers.

My girl has hit a brick wall and is HUNGRY!!!!
This is how we spend our day,

spend our day,

spend our day,

in the Child Life Room. Thank God for that room and the volunteers.

A very nice young man moved back home to help take care of his sick father and donates one day a week to come and take characture type drawings of the kids. No, she did not have to sit still for this. He did this as she went about her business playing.

When all else fails, call in the massage therapist (again) and then bring out the big guns, a music therapist.

Chaning could be heard rooms away playing the drums. This allowed her to get a lot of anger and frustration out because she is HUNGRY!!!

This is our trip to the gift shop today. We make this trip everyday. Today we left pouting. It was not because she didn't get anything. It was because she was HUNGRY!

Chaning has been waiting for us to take our cameras down to the tour of trees we take each day and take her picture in front of one. Before today, she takes pretend pictures in front of each tree.

This is her favorite tree, The Whoville Tree.

Okay, mom, it's my turn to take your picture with my camera.

How she can keep putting such big smiles on her face, I still have not figured out. Meltdowns did occur on our way back up to the room. Let's just say she strutted back down the hospital hallways with her lips poked out full force but she did look cute doing it. It's hard to get people to quit telling her how cute, darling, pretty, adorable, precious, I love your hairband, I love your slippers...when she just wants to be left alone today.

Today, our party room and time at the Ritz Carlton turned into a sentence that felt like a local jail. Disclaimer: I would assume. Never been there to know that for sure. It all started as a great morning. She woke up and pointed to her one-a-day gifts on the table and then we proceeded to get ourselves fixed up for a fun day at the playroom. Upon our return from the playroom, things went straight downhill. Chaning could smell food. Yes, food that I was hiding behind her bed that would constitute my lunch. Keep in mind, I am here by myself. That means you do not leave the room unless it is about a 50 yard distance and quickly return. Thank goodness the ice machine falls into the area. She quickly told me that she was hungry and started melting down. I'm sure that not understanding the concept of days, it is hard for her to keep believing me when I say that she can eat in so in so days.

Regular vital sign checks turned into hands being thrown up in the air and her whaling to the top of her lungs. This is the kid who has not had pain meds since day 2, NOTHING. She wanted the nurses to go away today and I just needed to respond to her every beck and call. We decided to take our walk downstairs which as you will read under the picture captions, that didn't help much at all. We came back and had the massage therapist do her magic. Things were great after that for about five minutes. She paged the music therapist. Things were wonderful after that so we decided to venture down for some more crafts. She did great and then when it was time to leave, she let everyone know she was not pleased that she had to go back to her room. They were handing her stickers, princess pencils, etc. She tucked her tail, poked her lips out and kindly returned to her room.

The nurses were informed that we were not attending game night and that it might get a little loud in our room. Chaning and I did more crafts on her bed and then when she became demanding again, her things were put up and she had to have a good cry. I just waved and smiled through the glass window to those that wanted to pass by and see where that loud sound was coming through. I'm sure they were wanting to see if I was sitting on her or something. She finally gave in and went to sleep around 5 p.m. Please take note that she has not had a nap in four days and has gone hard and strong everyday.

Aaaahhhh, this is a good time to order my dinner. Surely she will sleep for the 45 mins that it takes for them to deliver it and then another 10 for me to eat it. She was sleeping so good, the man delivers the food near the door, I proceed to sneak out from under her arm and she wakes up. You have got to be kidding me. I waited to see if sleep would come upon her again, NO. I finally decided the shower in the bathroom was a good place to sit in and eat my dinner. I lied a little!!! Yes, I did. I told her I was going to take a shower and sat in the shower and ate my dinner. Okay, this is where it gets really good. I finished my food, put my tray up and then told her I had to "finish" my shower (aka take a shower for real then). I go in and take a shower. The nozzle gets stuck on warm water. No, I mean literally stuck. I finished my shower, went out to the nurses station with my wet hair and told them that my shower was still running and that it could run all night for all I cared. I was going to dry my hair. They got a good giggle out of that. Yes, maintenance eventually showed up, walked in, turned the nozzle off (probably with one hand) and then said it's okay it was just stuck a little. I did everything but jump up and down on it with my feet (only because I couldn't reach that high). I nicely told him he needed to walk out of my room, throw some sweat on his face and tell the nurses he had to break out some pliers to fix that sucker.

On a brighter note, Chaning woke up happy from her nap, has only said she's hungry once and the best one of all is that tomorrow is day 6!!! That's a big WOO HOO coming from Rm 44 up in here. Please pray that tomorrow does not bring a full day of hunger and that the doctors find that she is doing well enough to eat Thursday morning and does not need to go back into surgery.

Day Three and Four Post-Op

Chaning's art and get well cards are taking over her wall.
This chick scored big at Bingo tonight. She won three times. One the way back to the room, she went down the halls yelling, "YEA, Bingo!" She had to show her nurse everything she scored.

Seriously, how much art work can one child do in a day?

Wisps are not considered food or drink and contain no water. She was really excited but wouldn't you know that I brought cinnamon flavor. It's too hot, momma.

This was one of her gifts she opened - a doctor's kit. Let's just say my vitals and hers are perfect. We checked at least a hundred times.

I'm a little bored right now....

what's a girl to do in this situation?

I'll act like my brothers. They look like they have fun making these faces at me. Take that, Matthew!

Welcome to my spread.

This is how I wash my hair, wash my hair. This is how I wash my hair without any water.

I luuuuvvvv my balloons.

This is how it's going down today, you check my vital Ms. "J" and then I get to check yours.

Day three was spent on the go again. This girl is wearing me slap out with her energetic self and no naps. No ma'am, we don't know what a nap is.

Day four is alot of the same. Tonight was B-I-N-G-O night in the childlife room. The prizes were not shabby. You could pick movies, big box games, polish, books, baseball caps, silly bands and lots of other things. Each kid could win three times and you can guess that Chaning won her three times and then let everyone know about it going down the halls. She is all about some Bingo now. I think it is only on Monday nights so she might be a little sad when I tell her there is no bingo tomorrow night. The doc came by and said he will check out her incision site Wednesday and if it looks good, she can eat Thursday and we go home Friday. If it does not look good, she will go back in for a brief surgery and then we will be here until Sunday or Monday. There is no reason at this point that she will not look good. Tomorrow is day five and cannot get here quick enough. Gotta go do laundry. See ya!

Forgot to mention that Chaning got a massage after playtime today. Yes, there is a massage therapist that came by and asked her if she wanted a massage. Of course, she did. Not sure if she is going to want to go home.

Day Two - Post Surgery

Do you think the girl has enough to do?
She quickly filled her jewelry box up with girlie goodies. The gloss is banana flavor and, yes, I do see her licking her lips often. I caught her eating her chapstick earlier and had to threaten to take that away.

A diva yesterday and a princess today.

This is a really good picture one of her friends at school drew for her. Can you tell which one is Chaning? Too sweet.

This is how our day started (might I say post opening her gift of the day from me). Head is placed neatly under the pillow with sounds that resemble a growl coming out of her mouth. This is where the phone call bargaining came into play. One meltdown in four days....I would have already have four a day and more than likely jumped ship.

This girl is on the run and I mean that literally. I have to run with her food/med IV pole just so she won't get too far ahead and rip her PIC line out. She woke up crying for food and I thought today was going to be really, really rough. The ONLY person she wanted to talk to was Fossiter (aka Foster). Of course, Foster was in the pool training and wouldn't be out for two more hours. Just the promise of him calling her made her smile and forget her hunger. The "food" through her IV they are giving her seems to have started doing its job this afternoon because she has not mentioned food again. They said it would take until today for this to happen or we would be changing her "food" out for a different brand. Thank the Lord it kicked in because it is hard to watch your baby cry.

We quickly decided to take off to the playroom around 9:30 this morning and she stayed until they closed it down at 11:30. She then decided we needed to take a trip down to the gift shop which seems like ten miles away with her and an IV pole in tow but she did wonderful. She wanted to purchase her sister and brother some silly bands. I think she looked at every single item they had. It was a fieldtrip indeed with the usual bathroom stops included. We returned to our room "briefly" to find a balloon and package from cousin Megan. Chaning loved her jewelry box and lip gloss. She quickly filled that box up and started applying her gloss immediately. Some of the nurses have accused her of being a little/lot spoiled. I would say the later is about true. She decided we needed to return to the playroom around 3:30 and we shut the place down AGAIN. She did not want to leave and I can bet that's where we will be hanging out again tomorrow. We ended our day with another ten mile walk to get momma a Starbucks decaf coffee. The local coffee room doesn't seem to be decaf friendly.

Needless to say, we are off our pain meds completely and only get them upon request. She slept really well last night and hope we repeat the same tonight. I lost my permanent spot in the bed to a monkey. I was so relieved but a tiny bit jilted.

Countdown Begins - Day One - Post-Op

Check out my Diva nails. Gotta keep those two fingers nail less for they serve as my pappy.

Poppy sent me a "TV" (dvd player) and it's perfect to try my nails out on.

I have a wrapped present to open each day but somehow my counter is a little off and I've scored three gifts today. Good thing they halfed my morphine.


Gift #3 of the day.

Playing a little Phrase 10 while hanging out in the playroom.

Still smiling

I think this was a little sleep playing.

Stating her case for why she should open gift #3 in one day.

And, of course, she won.

Today has been a so-so day. The consensus of the nurses on the floor is AMAZING. Some cannot believe that she just had surgery yesterday. She has been a little Diva today and full of smiles one moment and then a little fussy the next. They halfed her morphine, which is great and hopefully tomorrow she will come off of it all together. She has had a couple of good naps today, which have well been needed. We ventured out a couple of times but haven't gone terribly far. Hopefully, tomorrow we can go to the first floor and walk around a little more. She has complained a couple of times about being hungry so we are monitoring her until tomorrow to see if they need to change the IV to something a little more full feeling.

She has really enjoyed her DVD player today and thankfully I brought a pair of ear phones for her to plug in. Today counts as Day 1 behind us. Bring on Day 2. We miss our Daddy today. He headed back to AL to be with the other littles. We cannot wait to all be back together at home.