8-12-11 Pt 2

Here is Quinn hanging out in her hospital room. Relaxed and chilling!
Well another update! We are home! We had a great afternoon, we even got a couple of naps in, and Quinn did great! So we are home! Thank God for a great surgery day, with no complications, and at the same time, we love the nurses on the 5th floor, it's always nice to see them, but so nice to be home!

8-2-11

Here are Quinn and Grandma before surgery in the Cares Unit, she has her duck, her bear, and her music, so she was doing pretty good!

Here is Quinn's throat. You can see her vocal cords, which look beautiful, and the white thing in the picture is her trach, so there you go, she is beautiful inside and out.

Well we just watched Quinn get rolled away to surgery. You would think this would start to feel usual for us, but it doesn't. Granted I know the procedure. A call a couple days ahead of time to talk about Quinn, her meds, the procedure and so on. Then a call to follow up on insurance and paperwork. Then getting to Children's Hospital at 5:45 in the morning. Before that we have to do meds at home at 4:00 in the morning, and then load up in the car.

Once we get to Children's we check in in the lobby, and they have their act together, because we have already done most of the paperwork, it's pretty simple. We go back to a CARES room. I know the letters stand for something but I don't know what for sure. Basically there are lots of rooms where we get all checked out with blood pressures, go over meds again, talk about Quinn's history, which is a longer talk! We talk to nurses, Care partners, doctors, and this time we talked to Tracy's (our Media Specialist at Zeman) sister, who is in charge of making sure kids feel spoiled rotten and comfortable.

We then got to relax for a bit, then we talked to the anesthesiologist, and I think I always kind of freak them out, because anesthesia is what got us into some of the trouble we have. After talking to her, I ended up talking to a couple more anestesiologists, and I appreciate how involved they are, and we ended up getting two for one on anestesiologists in with Quinn for her surgery.

I get all teary every time I see her go into surgery. No matter if it's a "big" or "small" surgery, they all are a big deal for us. So after I got myself put back together, and saw Quinn off, Grandma Martha and I went to have a bit of breakfast in the Children's cafateria. After we got back to the waiting area, not more then 10 minutes (about an hour total) went by and Dr. Sewell was walking out to see us. Wow, that was fast. He said Quinn could not have looked better. Everything went well, and she looked perfect, so we don't have to worry about any scar tissue or anything. Whew, I love to hear that. So now we are hanging out waiting for her to get out of recovery, then up to room 503 to wait and see how the anesthesia wears off, and we might just get to go home this evening!

I thank God for the wonderful surgery and continue to pray that the rest of the day goes as good as this first part has.

I think everyone should come and sit in the Children's hospital lobby. Sip on some hot tea and listen to the water running down the water feature. More then that, you can watch. Watch the parents who are just as nervous as I am when Quinn is in surgery, some parents are here for months at a time while others are new to this experience and have the butterflies like crazy. Most important, you can see the kids. Kids in all kinds of contraptions. Walking in super cool boots, chairs of all shapes and sizes. Kids who look all types of different ways, and then as you look closer, tubes of all colors and hooked into all kinds of machines. Keep looking a bit closer yet and see the smiles, see the love, see the passion, see the determination. It's an unbelievable place, and every time I have time to sit, think and watch, I am amazed and inspired. What a magical place this is!

Update: We are out of recovery and hanging out in the room, and just get to relax and rest, Quinn is doing great! Smiling, and jabbering, and looking beautiful! I'm so thankful she is doing so well!

Wow!

I've been wanting to show you how Quinn can roll down her green mountain, all by herself! We had so much fun at therapy today with Suzanne! By the end Quinn was talking up a storm, saying "Roll" "Go" "More" and what a great job rolling all by herself!

Please say some prayers, Tuesday morning is Quinn's surgery at 8:00 a.m., we have to be there at 6:00 a.m., so it's going to be a long day! The doctor will go down her throat to see how the top of her trach site looks. It should be a simple out patient process, but anesthesia is involved, so it makes me a bit worried. I do know that prayer works so if you could help us out, I would be grateful!


I walked into Chrissy's house to find Quinn and Casey hanging out. I tell you what, Chrissy seriously has super powers! Quinn was over there for a few hours and in that time went potty twice, only sitting on the potty less then a minute both times, and stayed totally dry all morning. While yesterday she sat on the potty for me a few times totaling 20 minutes, and continued to tell me, she wanted to go potty, and did not do it. She will potty for me sometimes, but she does it for Chrissy all the time! We love you Chrissy! Then we got home from Chrissy's and Quinn took a 3 hour nap, as she does not want to miss anything over there, so waits to get to our boring old house and then sleep!



Well John has not gotten to leave Lincoln for the summer so we went to Omaha for a bit. If you have not been to the Joslyn lately, it's great! The children's garden was wonderful. We even ran into one of my students, and she helped me start to think of school and look forward to it!

Then we walked around Nebraska Furniture Mart, dreaming of all the things we would love to have someday, and more importantly trying to figure out what we both like, in my opinion, John goes for boring, and I go for kookie, and those don't mix to well, but I'm starting to change his mind. Weird enough, we ran into our friends from Ohio when we were there! That was so fun! So we got another picture with Karissa!

Finally we got to do some swimming, but not to much, as the water was freezing, but with dad swimming with her, she sure did not want to get out right away! Just look at that big kick in progress! You go Quinn! So a day of relaxing and fun, to get us ready for work and surgery!

Here are a few pictures my aunt took awhile back, and I had to share them, just love them.

We had a doctor appointment today, and I think one each day this week, leading up to a minor surgery on Tuesday, for the doctor to do a scope down Quinn's throat to see what the area above her trach looks like. It's a small surgery, but includes anesthesia, so that is a big deal for us. We should still be home on Tuesday, which is good, because I start back to school on Wednesday. We are moving back into our old school building, and I think I've got over 100 boxes to unpack, art supplies take up lots of room. So please say some prayers for next Tuesday, Aug 2nd. We will be at Children's at 6 in the morning!

Wow, after a busy week of fun in Memphis and a fun weekend with my friends from High School. (How lucky I am to still have close friends from High School) Quinn is exhausted! You can also see Quinn's Micky Button on her tummy in this picture, it is what we use to help feed her. What a cutie pie! I love to watch her stretch out!

Here are Quinn and Karissa, Quinn is telling her quite a story!
I did not get any pictures of Quinn and Grandma, so I had to throw this one in for fun! We love you Grandma!

One of the many fun memories from our trip. Quinn does not like to talk to folks she does not know. I keep thinking one of these times, she is going to give in and talk. Well, it happened on accident for her. We were in our bedroom getting ready for bed, and I was at the foot of the bed getting stuff ready for the next day, and Quinn starts yelling "Mom" because she did not know where I was. Grandma just stepped into the room, and said, "I just heard her say Mom, is that what I heard?" Quinn looked over to see her, and got this look on her face that showed an opps, I was caught, and she did not talk again the rest of the night. Grandma heard her though, so that is a step in the right direction!

Here we are on the drive home, Quinn sang and laughed for a good 20 minutes. OH how I love hearing her sing.



More time with family, relaxing, fun, loving, uplifting moments. I love to see how much everyone loves Quinn. How thankful I am for that.

Here I was just talking about Quinn not being able to go swimming, but my cousin Chase and his wife Cassie have a pool, and grandpa carefully took Quinn swimming, and she loves it as much as ever. She kicked and smiled and loved it.