back home!

Meili and I checked out of the hospital tonight. After three hours of surgery Wednesday morning/afternoon she had to spend about 2 hours in recovery. The doctor said that things went really well. They had to remove a bit of membrane and muscle from her cheek in order to close one larger part of the gap in her mouth. After surgery I went into the recovery room to hold her while she woke up. She was in pain for quite a while. That was REALLY hard for me. The nurses were giving her morphine and tylenol to help with the pain. After she calmed down and fell asleep we were able to move up to her room. She was pretty much sedated all of yesterday from the morphine and tylenol and slept a lot which really helped. She also slept pretty well last night - considering everything she had been through.

This morning she seemed to be feeling better. I felt a lot better about things too. Meili was talking with me, playing some of our little games like peek-a-boo and she played with her toy cups a little while. She was able to start drinking liquids today and did pretty well with a sippy cup for the first time. She had some rough moments gagging on the stuff which is draining from the incisions in her mouth. It also seems that coughing and sneezing really hurt her mouth - bad timing for her to have a cold. She still has pain in her mouth - I have tylenol to give her when it's hurting. Several people from my church stopped by to check in on us which was great. My sister also spent a lot of time with me (since Henry's out of town this week.) It was cool that two Oakdale moms were working at the hospital today and were able to stop in.

I think the next challenge is going to be finding the best way to feed her - she gets only liquids now for three weeks. She was pretty wimpery this evening because she was so tired, in pain, and really hungry (I think). She did not take much of anything before bed so I have no idea how long she will sleep. But she is sleeping now and she looks SO peaceful. I think tomorrow is going to be a good day. Anyway, it's nice to be home. My dogs were pretty excited to see us! I'll report again tomorrow. Good night.