Day 24: A Visit with Uncle Mark

Last night Uncle Mark Flory drove down from Gurnee to visit with Evie and Francis Saturday night. Evie was in a playful mood and had fun goofing around with her uncle; it was the first time Francis heard her giggle since the surgery. She enjoyed taking all the Kleenex out of her Kleenex box, then putting them back in (sort of). She giggled and grinned while she and Uncle Mark played with her keys and wipes:






She thought it was funny to hang her key ring on Uncle Mark's ear:





Evie pouted when Uncle Mark had to leave:



Evie is doing better every day and we are seeing more and more of her old personality come back as she shakes off all these sedation and pain meds! She still has a lot of mucus in her lungs and hates her respiratory care treatments (and the suctioning afterwards!); she has learned to dread seeing the nurses break out the "purple gloves," which means suctioning is imminent.

Evie has had some trouble keeping her formula down via her NJ and NG tubes. She had some tests done today (Sunday), where barium dye (i.e., contrast dye) was sent into her digestive tract via her NJ tube and several x-rays were taken over the course of 2 hours to watch how it progressed through her digestive tract. We're going to meet with a gastro-intestinal specialist on Monday to discuss the results.

She is still slowly being weaned off of the methadone, and at the current schedule of reduction she should be off of it by Thursday, which we hope means that she could come home Thursday night or Friday. *sigh* one more week.