Well we are a little more than a week past Abby's surgery.  It wasn't perfect, but almost nothing is.  She was sick, we were tired.

When really intense situations begin to come to an end, you finally realize that you are tired; that's how I know that things are improving for me.  It's still intense and we are watching carefully, but I am exhausted.  That is a good thing.  I have spent the last nine days in response mode.  Running on adrenaline and making decisions, projections, mistakes.  When I can finally process that I am really, really tired, I am coming back.

I may have said before that I have tunnel vision.  It completely takes over in times like these.  I can't even think of what's going on outside of that hospital room beyond making sure the kids are where they need to be and have the proper rides, sitters, etc.  Whether or not they've done their homework, had dinner, need a bedtime story doesn't come anywhere near my consciousness.  Neither does feeling anything other than what is in the exact moment I'm in.

Nine days doesn't sound long to me.  A nine day vacation would fly by.  Nine days leading up to her surgery felt like a minute.  Nine days before Christmas can be cause for complete and utter panic.  Nine days waiting and watching for some sign that the child I bring home from the hospital will be the same child mentally and physically she was before is an eternity.  That's 216 hours, 12,960 minutes of wondering if our lives would ever be the same.

Her little body went through so much.  She has a 3 1/2 inch incision on her abdomen below her right rib cage and a 2 1/2 inch incision over her spine.  She has a pump sitting inside of  her abdomen that looks and feels like a hockey puck, which also bruised.  She has extensive bruising from her right hip to almost her left hip.  When I say extensive, I mean that I have never before seen such deep purple bruising in my life.  To say I was unprepared is an understatement.  She has bruises from attempts at IVs when she was dehydrated.  They finally found one in her foot.  Bruising from the IV infiltrating in her arm and leaking potassium into her tissue.  Redness on her body and sores on her ears from laying in the bed.  She vomited until she could barely lift her head.  I'm sure that just scratching the surface of what my girl has been through.

I am at that place where I can say all of that and still say I think I would have made the same decision again.  I am waiting for feeling like the results of the pump are worth everything Abby went through.  How strange it is to worry she won't be the same when the entire purpose of this surgery was to help her be different.  She really isn't the same child, I think she's better.  I haven't put a bib on her all day today unless she was eating.  All day!  I haven't been able to do that--maybe ever?  She slobbers.  She can't help it, but it's not that cute.  She's not slobbering nearly as much.  Her shirt isn't getting wet.  That's amazing to me.  She's more relaxed, but not floppy (that could change).  She's still kicking an playing.  She is using her hands so well!  They are open (they used to be fisted all the time), she's swiping with them, grabbing things.  I love it.  She still has CP of course, but it's a little better CP.  I'll take it!

I want to talk about how present God has been through all of this and where he is when we can't even see where we are.  I can't wait to tell you how AMAZING our God is, but I don't want it to be a paragraph at the end of a surgical description, even thought he is definitely and maybe most importantly here at the end of a surgical description.  He really showed himself to me and I felt peace. 

This is from last week, so I'll update soon :)