A Brand New Day. (Sorry if I ramble)

The Brand New Day started at about 11pm on Tuesday. After the surgery, Zoe went straight to get a CT scan and another MRI. We finally got to see her at about 11pm. The plan was to keep her under sedation until Wednesday, but Zoe had other plans.

She decided that she was going to show us that she was going to recover faster and better than anyone expected. We had been told all along, that one concern was that the nerve that controls the tongue is surrounded by the tumor, so in the removal of the tumor that nerve could be damaged. So the first thing that Zoe does when she wakes up (did I mention that she woke up 12 hours early), with a breathing tube in, she wiggles her tongue around the tube to lick her lips ( and succeeds). She had, by report, had a good night.

In the morning, she started getting ready to get her tube out, but first they needed to get a feeding tube in. Unfortunately the feeding tube would not go in. The Dr.'s wanted to use a speial technique that included an X-ray that watches the tube go down, so that they could guide it or see what it was catching on.

So, from the moment Zoe woke up she was able to do everything that they asked her to do, she could squeeze and move everything that they asked her to. When they turned down the breathing machine, she just breathed on her own, no problem, she had a great gag reflex, and could cough well, as well. That took are of their list of benchmarks for taking out the breathing tube, so they took it out, and she did great.

The first thing that she said to Mom, was "can I eat now". The Nurses and Doctors keep talking about how great she is doing, with statements like "wow" and "she is doing better than we expected", so it was great to hear her being ahead of the curve again.

She had to get a Halo brace put on to stabilize her spine until the C spine surgery, and it kind of scared me to think about seeing her in that, but after actually seeing her it is not so bad. She of course had to be great with the adjustments.

We seem to be getting assigned teh best of the best, from the doctors involved to all of the nurses. So far she has had a single assigned nurse, each shift, which her nurse seems to be the ones that all of the other nurses go to for advice and help. Her day nurse was the one that finally was able to get her feeding tube in when all else had failed, no need for the X-ray technique.

During her surgery Dr. Sekhar had to open the pharynx, and stitch it back up so she will not be able to eat real food for at least a week. We also found out that we are going to have the C Spine Surgery on Monday or Tuesday. We are going to have the surgery here at Harborview, instead of at the Childrens Hospital. Which other than the expense of a hotel, we have been having good luck here so, why not stay with it. He has also decided that he is going to do a third surgery, to remove the rest of the tumor. He may want to transfer us to Childrens for some of the recovery, between the C Spine and the last surgery.

Dr. Sekhar is also recommending the Proton Beam Radiation Therapy, after her surgeries. So we are going to start looking towards making that happen.

Tonight I am taking a shift at the bed side, so Colleen can get a nights sleep, and I was able to get her to smile a real smile.
We are learning so much from this amazing little girl, todays lesson was to have faith in Zoe.

Thank you to all of the love and support all of you have given us, I could never express how much it has all helped.

Henry