The Recovery (Part 1)

The days following the surgery were hard but easy at the same time. Hard because she still looked pretty awful and her chest was still gaping open. Easy because she was so knocked out on drugs so I didn't worry about her being in pain.

Chris and I the first few days just slept in at the hotel til like 11:00. Would have been even nicer if I could have slept all through the night, but I was pumping to keep my production up for Aili. There wasn't much we could do there at the hospital so I didn't feel too bad showing up around 12-1 in the afternoon. Aili didn't know if we were there or not. So we thought we would rest while we could. We would just talk to the nurses and ask them a million questions when we were there.

That first day after her surgery (May 17th) I was still nervous seeing her. I would walk up to the room and wait at the door until the nurse covered her chest with something so I didn't have to look at it opened. They must have made notes for all the rest of the nurses to do this, because once they saw me there would hurry and cover her (I never did look at her opened chest, and I still can't look at the picture that Chris took of it.) The nurse the first day was awesome. Her name was Anne. I didn't get a picture of her. She was only her nurse for that one day, and then I think she was going to India on a big trip for work, with some of the surgeons. We asked her so many questions, and she answered all of them. She was awesome, positive, upbeat, happy, and fun.

 It was still shocking to see everything that she was hooked up to. It was like a maze of wires, cords, and tubes. I can't believe they can even get everything hooked up to a small baby.

Her face just didn't even look like her. She was so swollen. It was a lot easier looking at her when her chest was all covered. Seeing everything just was so sad.


That first day after surgery after we went and saw her we went up on campus the the bookstore to get some Stanford gear. We wanted to get us all Stanford shirts to go home in, because we are cool like that. We bought T-shirts for all of us and a little Stanford monkey for Aili.

The second day after surgery (May 18th) when I walked up to her room I saw her hair, and at first glace it looked like someone had shaved her head in a weird pattern, but then I realized that they had put her hair into cute pigtails. It looked like it was shaved at first because the roots of her hair is way lighter than the tips. The nurse said that the night nurses had done that. That was just the smallest simplest thing to do, but I was so grateful for it. It just brought me joy, and put a smile on my face that they wanted to make my cute, little babies hair pretty. The day before one of our favorite nurses (Amanda) from the first day we were in the ICU before her surgery was leaving for the day when we came back up to see her. She told us that she combed her hair for us. She said she had to do it will a toothbrush because when she did it with the little comb it looked like she was an old man with a comb-over because her hair was greasy. I'm grateful that they nurses care about these babies and care enough to not make them look like old, balding men. And Amanda wasn't even her nurse that day, she just took some extra time to take care of her. So nice!

Can you see that from a distance this might look like it was shaved? Blond roots with dark tips.

 First time having her hair in pigtails!

 Loved this little blanket they gave to her. Not the girliest colors but a really cute pattern. Volunteers make these blankets and donate them to the ICUs. Just one more of those things that put a smile on my face.

Cute little name tag someone made for her. Again...it's the small things that make you happy.

That night we went to this cute little cafe for dinner. We sat outside and it was beautiful and perfect. It as nice to have someone there that we could talk with and enjoy a nice evening with. It helped relieve some of the stress. We came to realize that "cafe" meant something quite different in California than it does in Utah. In Utah you think of simple meal items like, salads, sandwiches, soups, and wraps. Apparently in California it means 5 star restaurant where literally 3/4 of the menu is the wine options. Don't get me wrong it was absolutely delicious. Thank you to the Mittons for treating us to nice meals to lighten our spirits and fill our tummies.