Today was relatively quiet in the way of hospital-happenings... the only thing we were somewhat inconvenienced for was another nuclear scan to determine blood perfusion of Emma Kate's lungs post-operatively. Luckily it's an easy, fast test, and she tolerates it just fine. We have finally gotten her moved from an evening window to morning for her time off of the TPN (and without tooooobes and wires), which was really nice. The window has moved to 7am-1pm, so not only did it get moved to a better time to be off that stuff, but it's also been extended by 2 hours. I guess the window will get progressively longer and longer as she is able to take in more and more calories on her own. She seems more willing and interested when it comes to meals, but we're still far from meeting her needs, especially since she is needing extra energy for healing and repair. She's actually taking several bites of food on her own before we resort to little games to get her to eat more. She did well for breakfast and lunch (the speech pathologist joined us for lunch to observe, and she was pretty happy with how Emma Kate did), but when we switched to "soft mechanical" foods from dinner, instead of the purees she has been on until now, she did seem to have more trouble with it. I don't know if she's so weak in the muscles for chewing that she's not able to chew it enough, or if she's having trouble swallowing the larger mass of food. I think we're also relegated to sticking to the honey-thick liquids, since she seems to be coughing with the nectar-thick unless it's literally just enough to wet her tongue a bit. We're giving her tiny sips of thin liquids in the end of a straw, and she actually seems to tolerate those just fine, but it's likely because it's just such a minute amount, I'm sure. Anyhow, this is still our biggest hurdle to overcome, and we're so anxious for Emma Kate to be back on a normal diet! Besides, the toddler menu at the hospital is quite limiting, she pretty much has macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, and ravioli at every lunch and dinner, with an occaional attempt at peas or cottage cheese... It will be so wonderful when she can eat and drink normally and we can get her back to the home-cooked meals and variety she is used to!
Emma Kate spent most of the day outside of her room, either walking around or riding in her wagon. She's building up better stamina every day- today she walked from the cafeteria nearly all the way back to her room, which is quite impressive! She also got a visit from the music therapist, which was pretty fun, especially since the lady knew some of the songs from the Dora cartoon... :) Because of the way the day played out, she had a very short nap, only about 10 minutes long, including the trip down for the nuclear scan... so she was very tired and ready for bed tonight. It's so wonderful to curl up with her and have her go to sleep so smoothly!
Miss Gretta continues to attract much attention at the hospital, we get lots of comments on her! Today she was laying on Emma Kate's bed on her back, and I witnessed her roll over onto her tummy all by herself! The one arm was still sort of pinned underneath her body, but otherwise she was all the way over, and the bed was completely flat, so no cheating this time! It was pretty exciting! She's been quite chatty lately, and she wakes up in such a good mood in the mornings, with so many smiles, she's our jolly little elf!
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