MRI Update

It's been a long and draining day but the MRI's are complete and Alex did just fine. I stayed up until 12:15AM so that I could give her an extra feeding because she couldn't have anything to eat after 1:30AM and her test wasn't scheduled to start until 10:30AM. I think she knew something was up because she was up almost the entire night. We got to the hospital at 9Am and met with the anesthesiologist at around 10:15. The finally took her back at 11:10, and not a moment too soon because she was hungry! And it was her normal nap time so she was getting fussy. They let me and Aaron go back with her while they put her under and while she was resisting at first, after four deep breaths she was out. It was really weird to watch her go out like that and I couldn't help but cry. The only real negative of the day was that I told both the nurse and the dr. that she's allergic to a certain type of tape - they told me they wouldn't use it, but as we went to see her in recovery the first thing we noticed were her eyes...they were swollen and had rashes all around them...guess what they used to tape her eyes shut??? It's so frustrating that EVERY TIME we're in a hospital setting they don't listen to me about the tape - like I would lie about tape, of all things!! She was still groggy when we they called us back to see her and it took her about a minute to acknowledge us, but then she smiled and flapped her hands as if to say, hey...I know you!! She was intubated so it was obvious her throat was sore and her lips were dry and cracked. Aaron had some blistex in his pocket so he coated her lips with that and it seems to have helped. We tried to give her an ice pop for her throat, but she wanted no part of it. I think the worst part for her was taking all the tape off from the IV - she did not like that, but I can't say I blame her. We wont have the results for a week or two due to the holidays, but overall it went well and I'm so proud of the super trooper that she is.

One pretty cool thing she's started doing...yesterday we had a follow-up appointment for her back brace. While we were waiting I said Alex, give me five if you're excited about Santa coming - and she gave me five. I asked her, give me five if you had a good day with Miss Audretta - and she gave me five. I asked her, give me five if you love me - and she gave me five. Then I said, give me five if you love me more than Daddy (shameless, I know!) - but she wouldn't give me five! So I said, give me five if you love Daddy more than Mommy - and she wouldn't give me five! So finally I said, give me five if you love us both the same and she smiled and gave me five!! Today her hair was a mess and I was talking about cutting it - so I said Alex, give me five if you want Mommy to cut your hair and she wouldn't do it - so I said give me five if you want to keep it long and she smiled and gave me five. Fifteen minutes later I asked her the same thing and again, her responses were the same. So I think I may have found a new way to communicate with her and that's really exciting!!!

Thank you so much for all of you that prayed for her and sent us encouraging e-mails - we appreciate that more than you know. She's resting peacefully and Zach is with my parents and his cousins for another night, so I'm going to finish up some last minute wrapping and calling it an early night.