Well, What Can I Say?

I stand in awe of God's miracles once again. And I stand in awe of Bailey's strength and courage once again.

We are back on the Heart Center and feeling great! Bailey got rid of 2 more lines today -- her foley cath (and yes, Claire, she can wear underpants again! Ha! She would be totally embarrassed if she knew I just wrote that, so don't anyone out there tell her, OK?) and her central line. The cental line was an experience. It was basically a heavy-duty I.V. that they stuck in her neck during surgery. It was stitched in, but all the lines attached to it made it so heavy that it was pulling on her neck skin. It just looked completely uncomfortable, although she never complained about it. She just asked that whenever they were hooking anything up to it that they be careful and not pull on it. Well, duh. Anyway, Dr. T came in with his nurse practitioner and said, "I have to go over to Methodist, so let's get this line out." There were about 6 of us gathered around her bed holding her hand and performing various other "duties" as the nurse practitioner snipped the stitches and then took out the line. I wasn't expecting what came next. She held a big patch of gauze over the area, but it started turning red . . . and redder . . . and redder . . . I saw the look in the N.P.'s eyes and tried not to get excited because I was the one holding Bailey's hand to calm her down. But when I saw the blood pooling at the edge of the gauze getting ready to run down the front of her chest, I said, "It's gonna . . ." and that's all I got out before it ran down her chest. Bailey could feel the warm liquid and I grabbed her gown and started blotting as quickly as I could so she wouldn't see any of it. Dr. T leaned over to look at it and said, in the calmest voice ever, "Ok." Then he turned around to wash his hands and get some gloves on and came over with a clean patch of gauze and took over. He removed the already soaked gauze and tossed them in a plastic dish on the bed and Bailey perked up and said, "What's that?" I said, "Just don't look, Bailey." She said, "I wanna see." So she looked and I was completely and totally impressed at her ability to hold it together. I don't think she would have been nearly at ease if Dr. T wasn't around. He's just incredible. So, he got it to stop bleeding, put some little strips on it to hold it together, dressed it, and then our nurse Anne and I and Scott started cleaning everything up. We even had to wash her hair - it was soaked too. Anne was sneaky and threw a bunch of sheets on top of Bailey's bed behind her so she wouldn't see that. We ended up having to throw away her pillow from home because that's the one she was laying on and it got soaked too. I just thank God that I can handle the sight of blood. Bailey's comment later was, "Well, I wanna be a nurse so I have to get used to it." Her strength amazes me.

She hasn't had any problems with her BP all day. She even felt so good that she called her best friend, Paisley, today. She hasn't been wanting to talk on the phone to anyone in weeks. It's just been one joyous day. It's so good to be back on the heart center, although, I have to make it perfectly clear to everyone out there that our nurses in ICU were wonderful. Stacia, Waenita, Anne, Sheila, Erica . . . I'm sure I forgot someone else, but they all took very good care of us. If you have to be in ICU, Riley's the place to be.

Tom and the girls are here tonight. Bailey's having a great time visiting with her sisters. She hasn't felt like doing that in weeks, either, so it feels like old times. Everyone's commenting on how it's so nice to see the old Bailey again. That's so true.

We're not out of here yet, and Dr. D reminded us today that things "still aren't perfect", but today was a good day.

Good night!

Angie