Sunday morning

I spoke to Matt this morning, and he sent some pictures over as well. Annabelle looks much better in the photos. It looks like she has already gone through a week of healing, and the bruising and swelling has gone down. Here are the updates:

The nurses and doctors are taking most of the lines and tubes out of Annabelle today. She has already been removed from the respirator and is breathing on her own. I lost track of all the lines she had in her, but most all of them are out. She will now have two in her neck - one for food and one blank one in case they need to give her some pain medication. There may also be one drainage line left in her leg to take care of the incision in her back.

Currently Annabelle is not on any pain medication. It sounded as crazy to Matt as it probably does to you. How can she not be on any pain medication after multiple invasive surgeries. They point to her heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and expressions. All numbers are in line for a new born baby, and if she was in pain she would be showing it in her face. Matt believes them, but it does concern him on a different level. It is possible she isn't feeling the pain of her incision because the nerves simply aren't sending the signals.

It had been tough for Matt to watch the nurses and doctors move Annabelle from one hospital to another. There were so many tubes and wires that it took many people unhooking and re-hooking machines, twisting, turning and untangling everything to get her ready to move. They would also need to move Annabelle in her bed multiple times, and watching it all wore him out yesterday. Everyone is happy to see her mostly untethered today.

The next step in Annabelle's recovery is to get her eating. As a precaution, the nurses and doctors want to scan Annabelle's internal organs to be sure there is nothing requiring attention before they feed her more solid food. The problem is that in order to do the ultrasound on her heart and kidneys, she would normally need to be placed on her back. As this is not an option with the healing incision in her back, they are brainstorming solutions now.

Annabelle's blood work came back with indicators showing inflammation, which is to be expected. Unfortunately the same indicators can also point to infection. They believe it is just inflammation, but they are running some additional blood work today to be sure.

So today's goals is to figure out a way to perform the ultrasound, hopefully sometime this evening, which would then allow her to start eating more solid food. In the meantime she is stable, recovering, off the ventilator and checking out the world around her. Holly went down to see Annabelle last night. When Holly would talk to her, Annabelle's face would light up. Annabelle even reached out and grabbed Holly's hand. Annabelle is engaging with her surroundings which is a good sign regarding her mental development.

Friends and family are visiting Holly again today. When she has company, Matt is hoping to duck out once or twice a day to head home or maybe just go for a walk to clear his head. He may check in here to pass along some new information or to just say hello to all the wonderful new people in Annabelle's life. He asks that you continue to pray for the health of Annabelle's spinal column, her neurological development and rapid recovery from her surgeries.

Below are some photos from this morning. The beautiful sign on Annabelle's bed was provided by Kathryn Mercer.