Today

Needless to say, it was a little scary to see Lizzie. Her head is a lot more shaved than with her brain tumor surgery and her scar from this surgery is twice as big as her tumor one. She had to have a blood transfusion yesterday because she lost so much blood in surgery. She looked really beat up last night, but once she came out from under the anesthesia, she did well.

She rested peacefully most of the night and her pain was managed well. Today she is full of frustration because they won't let her get up to go potty and she does not want to go in a pull-up, so hopefully we'll avoid all the bathroom troubles we had last time.

Our doctor explained to us that Lizzie's tumor and all the fluid has pushed her brain down and left a space between the brain and the outer part of the brain (the dura) and related it to her having a size 8 brain in a size 10 head. We are really hoping that with all the fluid and gunk out of there that the ventricles of her brain will expand and fill up that space to avoid having an empty place for fluid to collect again.

We are getting a CT scan this morning and then hopefully we'll get transferred back to our own room because the PICU is not fun for a kid who values her privacy.

Lizzie is pretty sad today - just is getting sick of being messed with all the time. She currently has two fluid drains coming out of her head and one additional for blood because she is still bleeding from surgery and they don't want the blood to collect in the area where it was yesterday. She has three IV sites and 3 other monitors hooked up to her so she is a mess of wires and they are really starting to bug her. Anytime anyone comes in she looks at me with fear and says, "what are they going to do to me?" She even started crying when housekeeeping came in to empty out the trash because she thought they were the phlebotomy team coming to take blood.

This is so hard for a little person to go through - my heart hurts for her and we wish it was one of us rather than her. We feel quite helpless and heartsick, but we're on the road to recovery and hopefully we won't have any more speed bumps!~