Believe It or Not!

I hope I don't jinx anything  by saying this but...

Eden is doing well!  She is doing exactly what they expect her to do at this point.  Now, that's a first.  Her nurse Michelle said today that "frankly, we are all a bit surprised at how she is doing. It's so out of the norm for Eden."  No matter what, she has beat the odds just making it to two days post-op when at one point it looked as though she would not make it out of surgery.  I can't tell you how proud I am of Eden.  She proves herself as one special little lady every day.  I considered her to be my hero before, but she has taken the word "hero" to a new level for me.  I am just a proud mommy I guess.  No real changes for Eden.  They are keeping her very sedated still and watching to see how her body reacts to post open heart surgery.  They manipulate her medications now and again and have began weening her ever so slowly on certain things.  I don't know if I mentioned this before, but she has a small pace maker type device helping her heart to fire at a constant pace and they are turning that down little by little.  Because the heart is so tired and stressed from surgery, it is quite common to have a temporary pace maker.  Dr. Pearl is thinking of removing the stint holding her sternum open tomorrow and sewing her skin together.  They will see how her heart handles this and then talk about sewing the sternum and skin shut.  It can be very stressful for the heart to have the pressure of the bone again so they take it slow.  Slow and steady works best for Eden.  She is peeing more today than yesterday and her envos is slowing rising.  The envos measures the oxygen saturation (O2 sat) to the brain and obviously that is crucial.  In my crash course on pediatric cardiology, I learned that 2/3 of our oxygen saturation should go to the brain and 1/3 to the body.  As I have stated before, a normal person's O2 sat is 100.  Before surgery, Eden's hovered anywhere from 75-80.  She is now in the low 90's.  Therefore, they would like her envos to be in the low 60's.  When she returned from the OR it read 15!!!!  Yesterday it was up to around 44 and today it is in the mid 50's.  If you look at her pictures post-op this is that huge tape looking thing on her forehead.

I have been so uplifted and sustained from all of your sweet and encouraging comments.  I look forward to reading them as they really do boost my spirits.  I have been very happy the last two days, but guarded at the same time.  It's sad, but I am so nervous to get too hopeful as I know how emotionally difficult the let-downs are.  Call it mother intuition or the whispering of the spirit, but part of me thinks that we are not going to have too many problems this go around and that it is okay to be excited and hopeful.  Such a game!  I fell like I have aged 10+ years in the last three days and I NEVER want to replay Tuesday again for the stress and worry, but I would ALWAYS welcome the comfort and peace the Lord provided that day.  I will never doubt again that the Lord loves us and that He blesses us daily.  I hope I have learned to better recognize and thank Him for His tender mercies in my life.