I am exhausted (it has been a LONG day) but I want to write to let you know how things have been going since we have been home from the hospital. Esther Marie was thrilled to get home to see her brother and sisters and her toys! She felt pretty good on the way home from the hospital because the nurse gave her medicine right before we left. She was happy to leave and smiling and waving bye bye to everyone! Jasper and I were happy to leave also. She was even "singing" along with the music on the way home from the hospital!
Now home, we are having our ups and downs...and basically Esther Marie is "up" when she is on pain meds and "down" when she is not. Last night was rough....with constant thrashing and moaning...even with pain meds. I can see that nights are worse than days as far as the pain goes. I wish Esther Marie could talk and tell me what is hurting and how much it is hurting! She is still running a fever and that makes it worse. Jasper and I were pretty exhausted on Friday and went to bed early even though we had tons of stuff we wanted to do. And then with Esther Marie sleeping between us and MaryAlyce in and out of our bed too, we basically woke this morning feeling like we had not had very much sleep. (sigh)
Today it has been raining and we stayed in all day...just focusing on the kids. I missed three days of school and two nights of homework with three children and I can tell it. Joshua and Hannah have been working on homework this afternoon. Joshua is supposed to be "star student" this next week at school and I just found that out today! I don't think I can do that this week under the circumstances. He is supposed to have a poster. I will be doing good to get cupcakes there on Thursday at lunch time to celebrate!
Anyway, Esther Marie was fairly perky this morning and held out her little arms to have the restraints put on after she woke up. It was so sweet it just broke our hearts to put them on her. She has not done any screaming or crying about it, except when they were first put on her at the hospital. She seems to accept that she has to wear them. We are trying to take them off every two hours to give her a break...also when she is sleeping.
This afternoon Emmie was fussing quite a bit and fell asleep in my arms while we were sitting on the couch. She reached out and grabbed my arms to pull them around her, which is something she has started to do just since we were in the hospital after her surgery. She didn't want to be put down, so I sat there and held her while she slept for a couple of hours. When she woke, she just kept her head laying on my chest and was so quiet....I knew she was hurting.
Today, we started putting ear drops in her ears to help keep down infection and to keep the tubes clear. She didn't like that at all and cried....she had to lay there for five minutes on each side after the drops went in to make sure they went down into her ear canal. She didn't fight it but just laid there whimpering. She is such a good kid! The rest of the afternoon, even with medicine, she was "down" and finally she fell back to sleep and took another long nap in the bed. When she woke, she was hurting again and clingy. I tried to distract her by giving her a bath and afterwards, she was sedate and clingy again. An hour later, she perked up after some more medicine and then she ate some dinner. She has been eating and drinking much better since we got home from the hospital. I think the familiar surroundings are helping.
It is about 10:30 p.m. and she is sitting in her daddy's lap with her arm restraints on...watching him draw on the computer. I guess she will be up for awhile because of the two long naps this afternoon and early evening! It's very cute when she keeps asking "what's that?"
There are a couple of good things about her having this surgery....1) She had her mouth repaired, her ears and her finger....she needed those things done...and 2) she bonded A LOT with me while we were stuck in the hospital and she was depending on me for so many things. Every time someone came into the room to do something to her, she wanted her mommy! She would not sleep in the hospital baby bed very much...she wanted mommy to hold her. Jasper was there also but I was the one trying to take care of her the most...and now that we are home, she is clinging to me. It might not sound like a good thing to you when you are reading this, but it IS a good thing!
As you continue to pray, please pray that the pain will diminish and her mouth will not hurt so much. I hate having to keep her on constant medicines for pain, but will do so to make her feel better. We can tell when she is really hurting because she is drooling a lot....meaning, she doesn't want to swallow because it hurts too much. Also, please pray that the fever will go away. Thanks to everyone for your encouragement, your help and your prayers!
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