Friday, 9/14/07- Sleeping soundly all snuggled with her favorite blankie.Friday, 9/14/07- Guzzling her first bottle after surgery and loving it even though it is only very watered down apple juice.
Saturday, 9/15/07--Yeah, she's out of ICU and in an intermediate recovery room!!!
Monday, 9/17/07--A totally different child from yesterday and doing awesome!!! She was soooooooooooooooooooo happy to be home!!! And so was I!!!!!!
Wednesday, 9/19/07--here is her proof of "battle" and it looks a lot better than I had imagined!

Gracie loves "the ride"as all the big kids call it at Pastor John's house
Gracie also loves to swing!!! This is the airplane swing at Pastor John's house.

Big sister, Chloe, giving Gracie big pushes.

At the water park in Hermiston
Using the package of t.p. as a stepstool
Oops, sorry it's sideways! This was very early a.m. before her heart cath She is totally loopy here and feelin' good just before the procedure.
Here is the room they wheeled her to for her heart cath. She was so intrigued by everything and of course totally loopy that she didn't even cry when they took her. We were so glad!!

MONDAY, 10/15/07

AAAggghhhh........what a whirlwind of a month we've had and I'm sorry but I still can't post any pictures! Our "good" laptop died on us and that is where we uploaded all the pictures to last week! We're sure hoping & praying that it just needs a new battery pack! I'm using the keyboard from our broken screen laptop that Scott is running to our PC monitor! Talk about being creative! Anyway, we started moving things into our house on 9/24; only 9 days after we brought Gracie home from the hospital. We are about half unpacked but pretty much completely disorganized and totally frazzled!! We had a scare at Gracie's post-op follow-up...she had a bunch of fluid that had pooled up in the lining of her left lung again. They told us to come back in 5 days and if it wasn't clearing up then we would have to take her back to Spokane for a catheter procedure to drain it again. We prayed hard and asked many of you to pray hard too and God answered our prayers!! When we took her back almost ALL of the fluid was gone!!!! She has another apt. next Wed. and if it's still cleared up then I think she will be taken off the lasix medication. She is doing fabulous!!! She started trying to walk again pretty much as soon as we got her home from the hospital and is now walking more than she is crawling. She has gained another pound since surgery so is now 19 pounds. This is still quite small for her age, 18 months next week, but she is gaining weight much quicker now. Her hair has grown a little but we're considering Rogaine--hee, hee. We realized when we got her home from surgery that she had EIGHT teeth that were breaking through and she never acted fussy at all!!! What a trooper! She has learned to say duh (done) & baa (bye) in addition to her other words and can point to the parts on her face. She totally understands English now and follows directions really well unless she doesn't want to of course. Kaleb, Lucas and Chloe are so good with her and make her laugh all the time. The biggest issue is with Chloe wanting to coddle and baby her and Gracie will have NONE of that!!! She does get quite jealous if we are giving any of them our full attention but they are mostly very patient and foriving of that. She definitely has a stubborn streek like most toddlers but she is a very playful, happy, fun-loving and sweet little angel.

MONDAY, 9/17/07

Yeah, we're home!!!! Gracie was moved out of Pediatric ICU Saturday afternoon and released to go home yesterday!!! We were both soooooo ready to get home! When they moved her out of ICU to another room she almost completely refused to eat or drink anything and she almost got put back on her IV. So, I was up half the night pushing fluids with her and by Sunday afternoon she was taking them better. Thank goodness! They did chest x-rays, labs, and another echo cardiogram and the doctor said she looked great and was ready to go home. She was still extremely lethargic and not herself but I suspected it was just because she was totally terrified at the hospital. Scott and the rest of the kids drove over and picked us up and she brightened up a bit just seeing them. She fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept great all night. It didn't take too long after she had her bottle this morning before she was smiling, laughing, crawling, and even climbed up on top of a little step stool!!! I was hovering over her & totally had to slow her down because she was scaring me to death! She was so glad to be home and just kept kissing me all day--it was soooo cute!!! I will try to post some pictures tomorrow but for now I need to get to bed. Thank you again to all of you who have prayed and are still praying for her. We love you all!

SATURAY, 9/15/07; 8:00 AM

I had quite an emotional day with little Miss Gracie yesterday. The few times Gracie had "come to" over the last few days it was like she didn't even know who I was. Yesterday, anytime I made eye contact with her she would close her eyes which is what she did to me for the first 4 or 5 days after we got her. One of the nurses explained to me that many people who have been on by-pass machine during surgery have said they have memory loss, confusion, and are very disoriented for weeks. They told me not to expect to take home the same child we brought here. She woke up very upset and uncomfortable several times yesterday and it was heart wrenching for me because she didn't seemed comforted by me being there at all. The nurse let me hold her and she didn't like that at all & was very uncomfortable so we basically put her right back in her bed. I went to lay down for a while in the afternoon and all I could do was sob. I miss her---even though I'm here with her and I miss Scott, Kaleb, Lucas and Chloe too. I just want to go home and for things to be "normal". The evening went much better though. When I went back to her room at around 5:30 pm she "came to" and wanted to sit up so I helped her. She just sat there and stared off into space for a few minutes. She seemed like she was getting really tired so I slowly started to lay her back down but she resisted and then put her arms out to me and leaned into my arms!!! Yeah, she wanted me!!! I carefully picked her up and she zonked out and I couldn't stop the tears!!! Hopefully I will see some more glimpses of our sweet little Gracie today.

FRIDAY, 7/14/07; 10:30 AM

Gracie is doing better each day. They removed her ventilator and stomach draining tube from her mouth at about 4:30 pm yesteray. It has been so good to smooch her little lips again!! I was able to give her a bottle with a few ounces of water w/a little apple juice flavoring this morning and she loved it! She is still super groggy but they stopped the pain meds that were making her so sleepy. So, she should start to wake up a bit more today. They were FINALLY able to remove her two chest tubes that were inserted during surgery and a few other tubes. Yeah!!! She still has her tube inserted into the lining of her lungs and that is still draining quite a bit of fluid so will stay for now. She still has several other tubes and IV's but some of those may also come out today. Still have no clue right now as to when she will be released. I don't really have any hopes for a Sunday release any longer, which is what the "average" recovery time would have been. But the doctors know what is best and we certainly wouldn't want to take her home until she is COMPLETELY ready. Thanks again for your continued prayers!