Night in the PICU

Hope and I are alone in her room at the Peyton Manning Children's Hospital PICU. She's quietly sleeping, after finally getting a full belly. After a long day, the nurses are finally leaving us alone for more than 5 minutes at a time. I'm looking forward to some rest tonight.

We started this morning at 4 AM, leaving the house at 4:30. We arrived at our surgery check-in spot at 6. Hope was not allowed to eat after 2:30, but after a fussy car ride up, she sat happily in my arms in the waiting room, sucking on her pacifier. I made David take some before shots, just so we have something to compare the after shots with:



After calling us back and getting some vitals on her, we got to dress her in a tiny little hospital gown and spend a few more minutes cuddling with her:



At 7:45, they wheeled her in a huge adult-size bed back to surgery. Saying goodbye was very, very hard. We got settled into the surgery waiting area, and were joined by my dad and Pastor Bayly. The surgery took about three hours. It went very well. The doctor said her blood loss was minimal, and everything went exactly as he had expected it would. After about half an hour in recovery, they brought David and I back to the recovery room. We went from there up to her room in the PICU. Here she is!


She has had a little bit of a rough afternoon. When we first got settled into her room here, she had some trouble keeping her heart rate up, and there was a scare about her hemoglobin levels. Fortunately, the hemoglobin numbers were incorrect, but we did spend about an hour dealing with her heart rate fluctuations. It turned out to be the result of the morphine she was given after surgery, and once they gave her a drug to reverse it, her heart rate and breathing became much more normal. With that scare, I was not allowed to hold or feed her for a couple more hours, but at about 4, they relented and let me hold her. I held her for a half hour, and she did so well that they let me give her a bottle.

Now, with a full tummy and appropriate pain medication, she is sleeping peacefully in her bassinet. I am praying for a quiet night, so that both she and I can recover a little bit. If all goes well tonight, they should release her to a regular pediatric room tomorrow.

While today has been stressful and tiring, there has been much joy also. Hope made it safely through surgery. One of the best moments for me was looking at her straight on in the recovery room, and realizing that she looks exactly like Rose! It was also such a joy to be able to hold her normally after surgery. Thank you, Lord, for giving us good gifts!