Day Four out the PICU door

Well we finally made it out. The Gopher had a really good night last night and didn't need any pain medication all night. The neurosurgery team came by early this morning and checked his incision and swelling and wrote the orders to move him up to the floor. They took out his artery line and his Foley catheter. The ENT came by and said that he didn't need his "face shield" any more either. We spent the morning just waiting to get a room on the tenth floor. His neurosurgeon came by before we got moved up and said that he was doing really well. He is eating and drinking good, no longer needing any breathing help and managing his pain well. He said that it might be possible for him to go home tomorrow or Monday. It depends on how long he needs to be on the antibiotics they gave him for his chest congestion. Around 1:00pm we moved up to our apartment in the sky. It seems like a mansion after being cramped in our shared room in the PICU. He has been doing very well all day. His left eye is completely open and his right eye started opening this morning. All day long the swelling has been going down and his eye has been opening more and more. He has even been playing with his toys a little bit. We haven't seen a smile yet, but at least he is content. We will see how tomorrow goes, and who knows, we might even make it home. The power of prayer is certainly evident in the events of the last few days. We went from unsure complications to complete turnaround in less than 24 hours. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. I thought you might like to see what the Gopher now looks like with out the bandages. I included a before picture that we took the night before surgery. You can certainly tell a difference in his nose.

BEFORE

AFTER

He has a really bad hair-do. It is kind of hard and crusty from the surgery and incision. But as you can see you can't really tell when you look at him head on. I have a close up of the incision, but Daddy didn't want me to include it. We decided that he looks like a baseball because the incision is wavy. He looks 100% better today and he is starting to look like himself again. With a good head wash and a comb over no one will even be able to tell.