Thursday, April 10, 2008

Hannah has been out of school since her surgery on Tuesday. Yesterday she was quite tired still and very sore, hardly moving at all. She got up at 11:30am! During the surgery, the doctor went in at the same incision site, took out the port and catheter, and stitched the vein that the catheter was inserted in. He then put in internal stitches to close the incision, and used a steri-strip on the outside, which is great, since no stitches will need to come out later. It looks fairly good, with no swelling, just a bit of residual blood. Hannah just can't stand to look at it and got very upset when she first saw it.

She still hasn't been able to get it wet, so no bath or shower yet! Today she was better, a bit less sore. Here is what she did today....more baking! See how she is holding that left arm up? I had her outside today, since it was so nice here using our pitch back, throwing and catching some balls. She did well. She danced a bit tonight with the girls scouts, although from time to time I could tell it was hurting her.

She is going back to school tomorrow. The doctor told us that by tomorrow she can get it wet, and the bandages will come off by themselves. She does have to be careful not to bump it or get hit at the site for 2 weeks. After that, she is free to resume all normal activity! I hope this will also help with her posture. She walks like an old arthritic person, with her left shoulder dipped down as she shuffles along. She never wanted to straighten up and hold her shoulders back because she didn't like the way her port felt when she did it. We'll be working on that now.

We won't be doing gymnastics tomorrow, and most likely no horseback riding either on Saturday, but we'll see. Dad is taking her to riding this weekend, so we'll see how that plays out!

xoxo Kim