December 29th

 Thursday, December 29th 2011

This morning started out at 8:00am with PT (Physical Therapy).  It was Kayla's best session yet! The mobility in her neck has improved a LOT. We love how they use games to distract the patients from realizing you are actually working on so many things! Her balance is good but needs improvement. I think her lack in balance is not from the surgery so much as it comes from "use it or lose it"... and she hasn't been using it much at all. Once Anthony is here, she will be so much more active.

We had a lot of fun in there. After we left, they announced that they would be showing the movie How To Train Your Dragon in the Chili Care Center.  Perfect timing, because Kayla just started reading the book! They had puppets to give out as well. So, with time to kill in-between appointments, we headed over there! The puppets were so cute! One of their retired volunteers used to design toys for Playschool. She made a bunch of different colored finger puppets to give out to the kids watching the movie. It was so sweet!

We had our appointment over at Nutrition just for a follow up. It was quick and sweet. It's hard to talk about food while Kayla is hungry and not eating before sedation. Kind of not fair at all!

Before we knew it, it was time to go check in for Radiation. Kayla was SO excited to show Mr. Jody her picture that she drew of him. When he came out she practically ran it over to him. He LOVED it. He couldn't get over how good it was. He sent a picture of it to his wife over text message (she works at the hospital too in procedures). Then he paraded it through the entire radiation department. He was so excited about it. They have decided they are going to have it laminated and will hang it in what has become "her" room for sedation. The first picture was made four years ago from another patient and it is still hanging. We were all laughing hysterically at how much he has changed in 4 years! He ages well. HAHA!!

 Everyone there will be requesting portraits soon. We are expecting a lot of art assignments to come!

Radiation was long today. Every Thursday they do films. The X-Rays always add a lot of time onto this appointment so Denny and I had a long lunch and walked over to the gift shop to browse around. Once we got back, it wasn't long before Jody came out to get us. Kayla was up and her neck had been rubbed. She did pretty well today. There was some normal discomfort, but I think she improved by a thousand compared to last week. We had a new anesthesiologist today, so she was surprised at Kayla's discomfort asking if she was ok. The rest of us are used to it. We explained how she is actually doing so much better. It's almost like white noise to us... how sad! You know how when you have a baby and you know their cries. You know the ones where you can just finish up whatever you are doing before running over to see what they need vs that cry where your ears perk up and your stomach turns while you run to see how they got hurt? Well, this is the normal, go ahead and finish up what you are doing kind of cry. It can be startling to someone who hasn't heard it as many times as us.

Daddy carried her out today and she fell asleep on the way to get some ice cream and lunch. So sweet.

Tomorrow we only (and I say only lightly) have sedation and Radiation at 10:15. We will have to find something fun to do tomorrow. Maybe we will take the trolly into down town. Not sure, maybe just come home and do nothing. Sometimes that is just what the Dr. ordered!