Post op day 6

Holy moly, recovery is a roller coaster!  Abby is like a hormonal teenager with her highs and lows!  One minute, she's laughing and enjoying music therapy or crafts, and the next minute she is screaming bloody murder over the injustice of having to take 5 bites of food.  Shew!

She is still making it quite clear that she HATES the brace, but she is at least resigned to wearing it.  I got permission to remove the neck piece during meals so that she can eat easier.  I have lost count of the number of times I've reminded her "you can do hard" through the therapy, pain, and brace-hating. 😕

Overall, today was productive.  Abby got her PICC line out, I made a lot of phone calls to insurance to work on her rehab placement, she enjoyed music therapy, 

played bingo, and painted a trophy.  

She also got her post-op Xrays done this afternoon.

The front view.  The straight rods are the new Shillas.

On the left is an X-ray from July and on the right is today.  

She worked really hard in PT today and did lots of sitting to standing and walking.  Walking is still very hard and she requires a walker.  She is unable to do more than a few independent steps at this point, and standing unassisted for more than a few seconds is also very challenging. We are also addressing her right foot being turned out and dragging a little.  My hope is the inpatient rehab can get her back to as close to baseline as possible, but we will see how it goes.  I've learned to just take it one day at a time.

The big news of the day came this evening when I got a call from Kennedy Krieger saying they had a bed for us!  We will move there on Friday by ambulance,  if all goes well.  We are thrilled to start the rehab process and get closer to home. Matt is coming tomorrow evening to pack up and move everything to KKI, since it can't go on the ambulance.  Abby is thrilled that her roommate has a service dog that she will be allowed to play with in the room! (They told us to make sure she is ok with dogs!). I am certain this will make the stay more bearable.  Now, if only we could pass Chloe for a service dog....

Thanks for your prayers and well-wishes. Every day gets a little bit better.