Kaycee's surgery is over and we are home! The surgery took place on Monday May 4th, she was in ICU until Wednesday evening, and then we came home Friday afternoon! The surgery went as planned with no complications. Mommy stayed at the hospital all week, which was exhausting, and Daddy visited as much as he could after work, which made for long days for Daddy. Emilee stayed at home with Granny & Pappy, which was exciting for her, but by the end of the week she was missing her family - I guess she really does like us! When the surgeons did the surgery they found several other issues in her heart, but nothing that could not be repaired, and they would have happened for the compensation that her heart has doing for the 11.5mm hole in her heart! She is completely repaired and has no restrictions on activity or food - or anything! The doctors told me that once all of the tubes were out of her that she would start acting normal almost immeditately - they were right! With in 15 minutes she was trying to run down the hallway for her chest x-ray - while mommy was running after her afraid that she would fall on the title floor and tear open her chest. Right now she is only taking ibuphron for the pain, and lasix so that fluid does not build up on her chest. She has no restrictions right now during her recovery, doctor said that the more activity that she has the better - so when we got home Friday she was chasing the ice cream truck down our street so that she could buy some icre cream. Amazing that 4 days earlier this girl had open heart surgery! Emilee, Pappy and cousins AJ & Jamie came to visit her in the hospital on Thursday - she loved it! The hospital has little cars that the kids can ride, so Kaycee made herself right at home.

As you can tell from the above video, Kaycee is quite the dancer! She loves to listen to her CD's with Chinese children's song on it. Kaycee will blast the music and sing as loud as she can - at that point the rest of us are either rolling on the floor laughing or heading to the basement for some peace and quite. I am pretty sure that they thought the kids yoga & dance while in the orphanage.

Kaycee went for her Pre-Op hospital visit today. We have to be at the hospital at 8am on Monday May 4th. We met the surgeon, and he was very nice and calmed some of out fears of the surgery. All of the nurses were wonderful - which is what you would expect from a Children's Hospital. We spent 3hrs at the hospital - vital signs, meeting with the doctor's, blood draw and chest x-ray. Kaycee was a real trooper so we stopped at McDonald's for some artery clogging food! The blood draw was not so bad this time. I explained to the nurses about what happened last time, with her triple jointed elbow, so they but some numbing cream on her arm and hand. Kaycee screamed when she saw the needles, but once they were in her, she stopped crying and watched! She has very slow flowing blood, so it took a LONG time to get the 3 bottles of blood. Kaycee will be in ICU until Tuesday afternoon, then transferred to a regular room, probably to go home on Thursday. This surgery will repair the hole in her heart and she will have no restricts for the rest of her life. My parents (and Shasta) are coming on Sunday so that they can watch Emilee, and take her to and from school - thanks Granny & Pappy! We will all be glad when this is over.

Kaycee will start pre-school the end of the month. She is very excited because mom is just not entertaining enough. I try and do something special everyday, but I just can't compete against a room full of kids. I understand.