Avery..

Avery had her surgery, and things were going as expected of a three year old to cope with new surroundings, a ton of medicine in her, and getting poked and prodded around the clock. But things quickly detiorated as the night-time came. David and I switched shifts in the afternoon, so he stayed with hewr,I came home and checked on the other kiddos. Made sure, homework was done, my cousin was ok, ordered pizza, ate, and then headed back up to what was hoping to be a mediocre night. Well, my little Ave had different plans....

Since she had been up since 4:30am we all thought for sure she would crash out sometime early afternoon, but much to our dismay she did not. Combine that with steroids every eight hours, not getting to eat what you want (she is a really good eater), and strangers coming in to TRY (notice the emphasis on try) to check your vitals, etc., etc. ,etc. The night was horrendous. She would not sleep until about 9:45p.m. and had to wake up at 10:10p.m. for more medicine. It went downhill from there. She cried, no wait; screamed and fought myself plus two nurses trying to hold her down. She spit it out once all over us, she slapped me, kicked me, threw herself on the ground, she even scratched at her eyes and neck, that it looks like she got into a fight with a cat! It was the worst night of my life. By 2a.m. I was crying my eyes out. There was absolutely nothing I could do to calm her down.

Needless to say, I think we got maybe a total of 3 hours of sleep altogether. By morning,we were able to get the medicine down better by pinching her nose, while one of us held here legs and the other nurse held down her arms. At least I know I wasn't the only one with a very upset child; whenever Avery wasn't screaming, our neighbor was. After much debate, (they tried to hold us for another day, because he wasn't taking her medicine). We got to come home, and things have been relatively better since. She is still coming off all that medicine, but I think she is better at home, after all, aren't we all?

Here are some BEFORE pictures, and a couple after, when Hailey and I went back to the hospital to relieve Daddy.

This was right before they took her back, they are trying to convince her to get up on the gurney....

She got a sticker for doing it, but not before her new favorite dolly did it and was ok..

This is one of the only pictures after when she was rockin' out with Hailey in the playroom