Home!!!

sitting at home...typing at the dinning room table...hard to believe the day is over...for me. For Stella's parents, the 24 hour bedside vigil will remain at the CHM PICU while Stella recovers more....

the minute Stella was finished in Post-op Recovery, the nurses came to get us as they wheeled her out of the PACU into the elevator on the way to the PICU. So for a brief 4 minutes her mom comforted her, checked her over and spoke in her ear. Her dad bent to kiss her and Brian and I both spoke words of love and encouragement, promising to see her upstairs. Still expecting a still heavily sedated little girl lying still on the gurney, we whispered and spoke mostly in generalities as if she would not hear us...because, how could she hear us or even respond in this state? But, to our astonishment, Stella did what Stella does best and exceed our expectations even in this fragile state...the PACU nurse asked Stella if she would like to "open your eyes and say hi to your mom"? Stella responded with a welcomed shake of her head "no". She was ok...revealing her ability to "out-stubborn" even the best of us. HA!

after she was settled into the ICU, we were able to attend her bedside...where she continued to awaken more to speak "wanting a drink" and waving "hi" and even signing "I Love You" to her Aunt and Uncle. What a relief.

Surgery details:

the details of the surgery were summed up to us by Dr. Sood that there were no "hiccups" in the surgery. It went very well. They removed a "little more of her Motor Cortex" than discussed, but not an unexpected in-surgery decision. The major concern was the use of her Right side of her body post-surgery. When her left ventricle begins to expand with cerebral spinal fluid due to the removal of the hemisphere, she may experience an decrease of right side use or paralysis until her brain regulates the ventricles, they will monitor this very closely and in 6-8 weeks will know if there will be any permanence to these changes in her right motor function. The fact she is speaking post-surgical so soon is a Miracle in itself to us, but medically, not surprising because the Dr's were almost certain the left side of her brain had already 'rerouted' this function to the R side of her brain as she developed...all in all...the surgery was the best case scenario and the next challenge is post-surgical recovery in the ICU. The current phase she is in.

What surreal experience....the emotional ups and downs...the waiting....the Jerry Springer on the TV (until someone came to their senses and changed the channel)...the perusal of Ashley's Senior pictures...the continuous web surfing (movie trailers, peopleofwalmart.com, shitdadsays.com, lastnightstext.com and of course updating the blog, email and fb'ing)...don't forget the three ladies who decided to hold evangelical church service in the waiting room with shouting to the Lord, down-on-my-knees praise and their belief that CNN and all news channels were holding a conspiracy on the Haiti earthquakes (huh?)....and the of course the very candid conversation I had with my two brothers on how we can save the world (well at least on a local level);)

It's been a long road for me with Stella, Erin and Jay....to see that she came out the other end does my heart good...because, honestly, I wouldn't be able to survive any other outcome....

Until tomorrow....
M