It's Going to be a Good Day Today!

Sometimes I don't wake up the easiest (or the happiest) - and often Ben has me say out loud (in my best Texas accent), "It's gonna be a good day today." It always makes me laugh and puts me in a good mood - that's how I feel today.

Lizzie slept about 5 hours last night and had a peaceful night. Her heart rate and temp are still lower and looking great. She also got the okay to get the brain fluid drain out of her head today. It was pretty funny. They numbed her head and the doctor removed the drain and then had to stitch her up again. The whole time she was yelling, "I hate you, get out of here, I don't even like you, you're a butt, etc, etc." It was quite the tirade and made me smile - I would much rather see her spunk than her be lethargic. Later we'll have another CT scan to see if the fluid is draining by itself or if we need surgery to have a shunt put in.

Her nurse today is Bonnie - we had her last week and loved her so we requested she be our nurse again this week. Bonnie hadn't seen her since Thursday and can't stop commenting on all the positive changes she sees.

Lizzie can still spell names, answer all sorts of long term memory questions, but she is still struggling with short term memory and hallucinations. She often thinks she's at home or school still and asks her friends questions. She gets really mad and yells at them when they don't answer her. She eats imaginary food, plays with imaginary things in her hands and has little conversations with all sorts of people. She can tell me what some of her friends' phone numbers are and is still very bright.

Her eyes don't focus well on anything, but I have noticed some improvements. Now that she has the drain out, it will be so much better. Anytime she wanted to sit up, go on a walk, lay back down or basically any movement, I had to call the nurse to come in and adjust the level of her drain. Now she can rock with me in the rocking chair and we can get her moving again.

She still can't stand on her own or feed herself very well, but we're making little progress every day. Her voice is almost a whisper and is quite mumbly, but when we ask her to speak up, we can generally make out what she's saying.

We're hoping to be here for less than a week, but the doctors are still concerned about quite a few things and the therapy people can't wait to get their hands on her, so we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have much hope - that we attribute to the prayers in our behalf. Thank you, thank you, thank you - we can't tell you how grateful we are!