On the Mend (we think/hope)!

Sydney is one tough little cookie!  She has taken all of this so well, considering she can't use either hand, can't roll around in her crib like she used to, and doesn't understand one bit of what the heck is going on.

Overall, I would say that Sydney does not appear to be in excruciating pain.  We are keeping medicine in her regularly for now to hopefully avoid that happening.  She has moments of sleeping well in her crib, but for the most part she has had a very hard time getting comfortable enough to sleep.  I don't blame her one bit, though!  We are getting some sleep, but not a whole ton and it is often interrupted.  The hard part is that I don't think she's all that comfortable with us holding her while she sleeps either.  I am hopeful that over the next few days as the pain truly wears off she will learn to get herself comfortable in her crib.  I suspect we will see her sleeping better soon, too.  In fact, as I type this, she is rolling from side to side in her crib to get re-situated.  I just know sleep is important to help her heal, so I want her to be able to get some.

During her wakeful times,  it's a whole nother ballgame.  We have managed to give her a sponge bath to get the hospital yuckiness off.  Sydney is using her casts to swing at things and even tries to 'grab' some things too.  She is really enjoying her exersaucer- she bounces all around in it and whacks at the toys.  Her smiles let us know she really is enjoying it!  We will have to become a bit creative with 'toys' for the next month.  So far I have found that she likes playing with a paper grocery bag- the noise it makes is fun and she can pick it up in spite of the casts.  Unfortunately, most of her baby toys are just too small for her to play with.  I am thinking she will enjoy banging on some pots and pans as well!

"Ummm...plastic bags do not belong on my hands"

All clean...sort of!

"Man, that was tough getting a shirt on over these things!"

Bouncing away

"These toys are kinda fun"

I continue to be thankful for the doctors and nurses that have cared for Sydney this week.  On Wednesday at about 7:30, Sydney's pediatrician called to check on her.  I don't think I can brag enough about her!  On Thursday morning, the recovery room nurse that Sydney had called to check as well.  She answered all of our questions and asked some of her own to make sure we covered all of our bases.  Then, Sydney's surgeon called as well.  We had scheduled her appointment for four weeks to have the bandages and pins removed.  The doctor decided, however, that she wants us to bring her back in two weeks.  She wants to take the bandages off and check to be sure the pins haven't shifted.  After some discussion, we decided that it would be best to have her do all of this in the operating room.  Sydney will be given some gas (not full anesthesia by any means) to calm her.  We did have the option of doing this in the surgeon's clinic which would have included us holding her down, her screaming her head off, and her (and me) being totally traumatized.  The drawback to doing this in the OR is that we will have to go through pretty much the same pre-op procedures as Wednesday: no eating after a certain time, arriving early at the hospital, etc.  However, it will all go much quicker and will be a lot easier considering it won't be full anesthesia again.  It will be a long day, but it would be long whether we chose to have it done in clinic or in the OR.

After everything Sydney has been through in these past challenging days, we think this picture pretty much sums everything up!

Tiny and Tuff!!