Sleepy but done

Surgery went really well, about six hours total. Dr Anderson said he cut about 60% of the nerve rootlets that are the cause of the spasticity in her legs.  He called this the "sweet spot"-not too much cutting to render her a total wet noodle, but enough that she will reap the benefits of the surgery.  He said she did great but that now, the hard part begins.  Meaning, she will have a lot of work to do, to get used to this new fangled body of hers.  Hence the super intensive therapy over the next year.

For now though, Hannah is resting somewhat comfortably in the pediatric ICU where she'll probably be for a day or so, then transferred to a regular floor where she'll stay until Thursday.  On Thursday she'll make the move to the rehab place in NJ.
I'm really happy with how comfortable she seems.  When she wakes, her biggest complaints are nausea from the anesthesia, and wanting to sit up.  One of the first things she said was "I want to get out of this bed." Don't blame you girlfriend. Sadly, she has to lay flat on her back until Wednesday morning.  I don't think that will be much of an issue for today since she's just sleeping a lot, but tomorrow will be a different story.  We do have some different ways to keep her occupied-got a loaner iPad-thanks Jill!-and lots of books, and the Child Life person also gave us a tabletop easel that we'll try to set next to her so she can draw while lying on her side.  If it's just a day of movies with us laying on the bed with her, so be it.  Whatever it takes.

I guess she'll start PT on Wednesday with them trying to get her up and moving a little, but I don't expect she'll be able to really bear weight on her legs.  The PT will be pretty low-key while she's in NY but once she gets to NJ it will ramp up to 2-2.5 hours a day.  I'm still feeling anxious about how she's going to react emotionally to all of the changes in her body, and glad that we'll have help navigating through that from the rehab folks at Children's Specialized. 

We plan to have Isabelle and Sam come visit this week, maybe Wed., and then we'll think about whether or not Bren and I want to switch off being with Hannah and being with Isabelle and Sam.  I think it's going to be a work in progress, but as I keep saying, one step at a time.

Thank you again to everyone for all of the love and support.  It's appreciated more than you know.  And I promise to get out the contact info for sending cards to Hannah as soon as she's transferred to Children's.