I'm BAAAAACCCCKKKK!

You will have to excuse me as I will have to dictate my posts for the next several weeks. I seem to have these awful arm restraints on and my parents don't allow them off much.

Mom will update for me today.

Last night (Saturday the 15th) at about 8 pm, Izzie was released from the hospital. It was really up to Chris and I what we wanted to do, stay or go. Izzie was getting such horrible sleep in the hospital (not to mention I was I getting no sleep) we decided that what they were doing for her at the hospital we could do for her at home. We thought she might be more comfortable in her our surroundings.
Izzie had a better day yesterday but the evening and overnight were pretty bad. Nurses and doctors were coming in and out. Everyone wanted to check out Izzie's neat surgery. It was rather irritating as just as I would get her back to sleep someone would come in and ask to check her breathing and heart beat which was their way of asking for a look at her mouth. They really were not monitoring much after the first day. The frequent overnight interruptions made for a long day. Izzie was much better yesterday in regards to pain and mostly stayed with Tylenol. By the time late afternoon came and I was back at the hospital after my short nap we knew that Izzie would be released. We waited and waited and waited some more for Dr. F. to come and give us his word. As the nurses on the floor and in PICU all told us Dr. F. runs on his on schedule. Apparently this is acceptable in the plastics world. We had to learn to accept this.

Izzie went home on a modified syringe feed. We sort of rigged up a syringe and red catheter tubing and she was eating from it. We did a couple of feeds at home this way and this morning I had an idea that if she would eat from the red tubing maybe we could place it on the cleft bottle that she hated some much from the hospital and she would eat from it without her knowing it was the bottle. It has worked which we are very thankful for because the syringe feed was so diffult to do with two people let alone if one or the other of us had to do it alone. You learn to just do the best you can.

Izzie is like a little Mcguyver. We knew she was smart but she has figured out how she can get the arm restraints off. We have given her a couple respites from the restraints but you have to keep such a careful eye on her even while holding her because she can sneak ANYTHING in her mouth. We are doing so much better know. Izzie is still pretty crabby but we definitely see periods where her smile is back. I can't tell you how good that makes us feel. Izzie boo-boo is still in there.
She has been quite chatty the last two days. We imagine this is because she can hear better. We are hoping that she doesn't have any lasting hearing problem which we are hopeful that she doesn't.

We will continue to update progress as we can.

Thank you for all of the kind thoughts.