Amber is recovering well - post 11

Good news. Everything is going as well as planned and even better. The pain issue was finally controlled in the middle of the night and everybody finally rested well from about 3-6am. Amber had an X-Ray at 6am and everything looks good. She got to eat breakfast and ate Fruit Loops (see the picture reel to the right of the blog) and they are going to test how her body does with the fat, and if it goes right she'll be put onto a regular diet. If her body doesn't absorb the fat properly, she'll need to be on a low-fat (aka no flavor) diet for a few weeks.

Amber has been awake most of the morning and has been quite talkative with Jamie and I, but not Dr. Hillman (it is as if she recognizes that he did this to her). She even talked to Christopher on the phone this morning.

The plan is to remove her arterial IV and catheter soon and hopefully her chest tube later tonight. That will leave her with just two standard IVs. They are also going to start working on transitioning her pain meds to something we can administer at home. If this goes well, SHE WILL BE GOING HOME TOMORROW :)

Amber awake and talking - post ten

Amber was just awake for about an hour and was talking with Jamie and I. She was doing pretty good for about ten minutes when the pain really started bothering her and she then cried for the past forty five minutes. We are all encouraged by her being awake as long as she was, but discouraged by how uncomfortable she became. They are increasing her continuous pain med to try to make her more comfortable when awake. We'll find out if it worked once she awakes again.

Nothing new to report - post nIne

Amber continues to sleep due to her medicine. In fact, she is dreaming well as she keeps making cute sleeping sounds. She has been waking up in pain every so often and they give her more pain meds and she falls back to sleep. They tried removing her oxygen mask earlier, but her o2 levels dropped so they put it back on. Brother Chris came to visit with grandma and grandpa swack for a little while and amber woke up briefly to see them.

Christopher was full of questions about everything in the room and the stuff hooked up to his sister. I think we have another life science guy in the making :)

Amber in room - post eight

Amber is now in her room resting. She will be kept asleep most of today so she doesn't move around much. She is up on the eighth floor in the ICU. She is sleeping and told Jamie to "leave me alone" because she is sleepy and hurts :(

Visitors are welcome but it's best to wait til Friday because she will be sleeping most of today and they want the room to stay low key today. She can have two visitors in her room at a time, but no kids.

Now we start the slow road to recovery. So far, everything has gone according to plan. Next step is to get rid of the oxygen mask which will hopefully happen soon.

Surgery is over - post seven

Well, everything went as it was supposed to and the operation is over. They are now waking her back up and will hopefully be removing the breathing tube before moving her to her room upstairs. We will get to see her in about an hour. Dr. Hillman said the ring was pretty tight so it's good that it has been removed and he saw an immediate difference in her esophagus. The trachea will take a little longer to expand because it is made of cartilage. Amber's asthma has hopefully been cured :)

Amber in surgery update - post six

Just got an update from Sarah saying everything is going as planned. Dr. Hillman is at the point where he is ready to cut the piece out that is causing the problem. Next update in an hour. So far, so good :)

Amber is in surgery - Post Five

Amber is officially in surgery now. Sarah just informed us that they needed two less IVs than anticipated so she won't have a chest line or an IV in her foot. So far, so good. Posted some pics too and I'll add new ones as I have time.