We are free!! :)

Molly got some good sleep last night and we checked out of the hospital just after lunch. The epidural cane out yesterday and her pain has been well managed, which was a huge relief.

The transfer to the car was painful, but hopefully we will get a system figured out to make it better.

Thank you all so much for your messages if support, silly stories, and jokes. She loved them and told several to her surgeon this morning. :)

Recovery going well

Molly is feeling more like herself today.  We went out to tour the hospital for a while, and even briefly went outside for some fresh air.

Last night Molly went down to the gift shop and picked out a new stuffed animal.  She then painted a couple pictures and wrote a story about her new cat named Limes.

Surgery recovery

A few minutes ago, Molly asked me if I had updated everyone on her recovery accomplishments.  :)

Last night, Molly started sitting up in bed on her own.  This morning, she was able to go down to the lobby in a wagon for the first time.  While she was out in the wagon, she got to see several dogs that were visiting our floor.  Molly loved the painted nails on this dachshund named Roxy, pictured above.  (Sarah and Molly remembered her from a previous hospital trip)

Eventually, the pain got to be too much for Molly while we were out of the bed, so we rushed her back for some more pain meds.  She is comfortable in bed watching a movie now.

Molly has continued to charm everyone here with her nice manners, and sweet personality.  (and her 6 month old brother Paul flirts with all the nurses every time he goes in the elevator)

Doing Better Than Expected

We are all happy to have the first night after surgery behind us.  Molly's epidural has been doing a very good job of managing her pain.  She is still having some pain at her neck from where the port was placed, but the pain management this time around has been quite good.  Unfortunately she had some nausea and vomiting yesterday, which made for a fairly restless night.  We are feeling so thankful that her pain is being so well managed for the moment.  She will hopefully have the epidural in until sometime tomorrow, unless it stops working, so we will keep our fingers crossed that the next 24 hours look similar to last night (minus the nausea).

She ate a little something this morning, which is a very good sign.  I am really hoping she will get some rest today.

She has loved the stories that people have sent in about naughty/silly things people have done or their kids have done - keep them coming :).

She is impressing the staff here with her positive attitude and has been told how brave she is on many occasions :).

More updates to come...

Surgery day is here

It has been too long since we have updated the blog.

Molly headed back for Surgery this morning at 9:15am central time.

She is going to get a new port-a-cath, followed by a new rod in her Right femur.

Depending on how that goes, he will then move along to the right tibia.  And then depending again, he will consider the left femur and left tibia.

I will post updates on the blog as we get them.

Update #1 (9:50am central) : Nurse just gave us an update that the port surgery is underway.  The Dr will come out to give us an update when he is finished.  Should take just under an hour.

Update #2 (10:43am central) : Doctor just stopped by.  Port surgery is now finished.  The new port was put in at the same place as the previous one.  Seems like all went well.  Prep is now starting for the leg surgeries.

Update #3 (11:15pm central) Leg surgery is underway.  All going well for now.  The Epidural seemed to go in well, so we are hoping it will give us good pain coverage.

Update #4 (12:04pm central) Right femur is finished, moving on to right femur now.  All going well so far.  This right femur was one of the ones that we didn't know what to expect, as the old rod had migrated a bit out of position.

Update #5 (12:54 central) The rod is out of the right tibia.  He is now working on putting in the new rod.

Update #6 (1:15 central) Dr. E came out to talk to us.  The right leg is now finished, everything went well.  We had a relatively long discussion to discuss whether we should do the left leg or not.  Blood loss has been good, so Dr. E is just trying to decide if the current state on the left side is good enough, or if we should do some more.  I got the impression that he will fix the left femur that just fractured last Saturday, and leave the left tibia alone.

Update #7 (2:15 pm central)  Work on the left femur is still going, doing well.

Update #8 (2:40pm central) Paul and Sarah are both sleeping.  Glad they can get some rest now before things are crazy later.

Update #9 (2:45pm central) Surgery is complete!  All went well, they are wrapping things up now.  We are not going to do the left tibia this time around.  In the end we have a new port, new rods in both femurs, and a new rod in the right tibia.  Dr. E will be out to talk to us once he is cleaned up.  We should get to see Molly in about 1.5 hours.

Update #10 (3:10pm central) Just finished talking to Dr. E.  It sounds like the surgery went really well.  There was minimal blood loss during the surgery.  He didn't have to do osteotomy on either of the Femurs, so he expects the recovery to go well.  So well, that he don't think we'll need any splints for the femurs.  The right tibia will probably hurt the most, but it sounds like we should have a pretty good recovery, considering how much was done.

Sarah request: Molly would love to hear any jokes, stories (especially about silly/naughty things you or your kids did when they were little), photos, pictures you draw etc.