Blogroll 11/16

Grace is doing well. We are back into our hospital routine now. It took me about a day to adjust from taking care of a 2 and 4 year old to now back to the newborn schedule - constantly feeding, changing, rocking, etc. Grace is a lot of work. These nurses are spoiling her rotten. I have one nurse who loves her to , the night nurse, and she holds her all night long AND puts her on her tummy. See, when you have a constant heart and respiratory monitor on your chest in the hospital, you're allowed to do that. But they're like, you can't let her sleep on her belly when she goes home. So I'm thinking, okay, so they're training her to sleep on her belly and want to be held all night long. Oh boy. I'm in for it.

Grace gained 2 ounces yesterday. She is a champ. She eats so good and she seems to be taking all of her meds. They have her weaned off of her IV medication for the most part and they have her all on orals, so it's a little of a challenge to make sure she doesn't spit them up and swallows them well and so forth. One of her pressure meds I don't think tastes particularly well. I think her belly looks a ton better than when I was here just a week ago. To me, I think it is way better, but who knows. We won't know how the chemo is working until we get another MRI. On a positive note, our LDS doctor, Doug, is going the extra mile for Grace. He has been talking to some of the chief surgeons here and they are in turn talking with some specialists who are going to check out her films and see if there is anyone who might attempt a surgery on her given the difficulties with the tumor and her vessels. We will see but at least he has people talking.

So I got here on Saturday and Ronald MacDonald was all full. That is the first time that has ever happened. That was a sad day. I stayed up here on the unit but it was not fun lugging all my junk all over the hospital, waking up, not showering, etc. But thanks to Marnae's parents, I knew I wouldn't have to go through another night of that. Thank you! But, as it turned out, someone checked out of Ronald MacDonald today and yeah, I'm in!

Today my friend Shonda came and took some more pictures of Grace. She is so nice to do that. I know she is so busy but she took time out of her Sunday to come and take pictures for me. I know she stays booked up for months out and she has a life and family too, so I super thank her for doing that and I know she really wanted to do it given Grace's situation and the circumstances. I can't thank her enough. Shonda really is one of those people that is beautiful both on the inside and the out. But for now, you will just have to look at my pictures of Grace. She does look a little different than even a week ago.