Day 3

Gracelyn had a good night last night. We were all able to sleep from 11:30-4:30. I didn't think that was possible at a hospital. It was a very uneventful night.  They woke us up at 4:30am for blood draws. I was really nervous about it, but she did great. It still took four of us to keep her still, but she didn't scream, so we are making progress. At 5:30 they came back and took us down for x-rays. She hadn't sat up on her own yet, so we were nervous. Her dad carried her to me and they let me hold her in a wheelchair to get her down to the lab. We continued to use the diapers through the night, but we promised each other that we would get up and use the toilet today, and she did. I know it is so hard on her, but she is a good sport about it. It takes three of us to get her in there. Nothing like having an audience.  Grace is still telling us she won't eat anything. Her dad offered her a donut and she agreed to eat one. She didn't really eat much of the donut, but the frosting must have tasted good because there wasn't much left. Jeff offered her a sausage and she ate it as well. Woohoo!

The awesome hospital volunteers did a BINGO game this morning. They broadcast the game over her TV. when she got BINGO we called in and they brought a prize to her room. So fun!

Her awesome teacher arranged for something super special thing morning. She was able to FaceTime her class. She was so happy to see them. They all had their "Gracelyn Strong" shirts on. They each took turns saying hello. We heard so many "I love you, Gracelyns." It was the sweetest thing. She has missed them and her teachers.

After talking with them she asked for a project to do. We broke out her needle work Hello Kitty and she spent a while sewing. :)

Our cardiologist stopped by and was very happy with how she is doing. Amazing is actually the word he used. {Have I mentioned that we think she's amazing too...?} Our nurse practitioner came in and told us we were good to take one chest tube out. We loaded her up on Morphine and oxycodone and took them out. I was going to leave because I've heard how painful they are to remove. I didn't want to watch her hurt. It hurts me too much. I was a big girl and stayed by her side.  When they removed her chest tubes 5 years ago, the NP counted down as she did it. She said, "3,2,...by the way blood is going to splash everywhere! 1." Jeff mentioned this earlier and so this time they brought him in a gown to tease him. They didn't want him to get blood everywhere. We were able to get it out without too many tears. They took her bandage off of her incision and it looks great. I use to fear I would hate the scar, but I'm so proud of it. It tells a great story about her. The surgeon stopped by. He told us that he was only going to take the one chest tube out today, but the others needed to stay. She is still pretty wet and we need to work on getting fluid out of her. He said we could talk about taking them out on Friday and do another echo at that time. We talked to her this afternoon about eating and she said that she wanted more sausage and a smoothie. She only ate the sausage. Since Sunday she has had donut frosting and 3 sausage links. There's no shame in a sausage link diet. I would do it too if I could get away with it. We had a few visitors this afternoon.

My cousin Craig came to see us and Jeff's brother, Brian, and his family came to say hi. Gracelyn says that her cousin Carrigan is one of her favorite people. You can tell from how Grace cuddled up to her in the picture that it is so much more than that. These two genuinely love each other. I'm so grateful to these girls and the love that my baby feels from them.

Grace was told she needed to walk today to get things that aren't moving so great, moving again.  I asked her if she would go for a walk with Carrigan and she agreed. It was awesome! She took Carrigan's hand and walked from her door to the hallway wall.