We are home!!!

I would first like to thank everyone for all of your love, support and prayers that you have had for our family over the last few days. Hands down, it is the most difficult few days of my and Mikey's life and we know that our strength came from The Lord and our wonderful support system that we have with our friends and family. So, because of all of your prayers, we got to bring Kiley home on Sunday. She was home and in her bed for her afternoon nap and it was wonderful. We are so glad to be home.

After the girls went down for their nap, Mikey and I just sat on the couch and stared at each other. We had such a mix of emotions. We have never felt that level of stress and exhaustion all at once. I think we were both in shock of what had happened over the last few days and that we had survived it. Many people have said to us: "I don't know how you guys are doing this", and the truth is, we don't either. I strongly believe that God doesn't give you anything you can't handle. And when you are put in a situation as extreme as this, you just do it. Especially when it has to do with your child and you have to be the strong one, you just do it. People have also said, "I can't imagine", and my response to them, was "don't". Seeing Kiley lying in that bed in pain and not being able to make her feel better was the single worst experience of my life and I don't wish it upon anyone. I believe in prayer and I believe even more that prayer in numbers is powerful. It was a very tough time for us and we got through it. I know we cannot even begin to count how many people we had praying for us the day of surgery and the days following, but I know that the power of prayer came through and we all survived and I cannot be more thankful that this is behind us!

Enough rambling...Kiley is getting better and better every minute. Believe it or not, she is only on two medications! IB Profen to prevent inflamation and another medication called Lasix to reduce the amount of fluid in her body. I am in awe of how amazingly strong she is. She has an incision and a broken chest bone, and she is only taking Advil. It is a true miracle. She is our little miracle!

We weren't sure what to expect post-surgery, but she is pretty much just going on with her business...playing as usual. Mommy and Daddie are nervous about her falling or sister pushing her down, or her climbing on the furniture, but we are parents and we have to worry about something. We already see changes in her. A lot of them are hard to describe, but she seems more mature and more energetic! Her heart has been working overtime for 3 1/2 years and now it isn't. It is so amazing!

Blogger will not let me post video's, but we have a video of her dancing on Sunday evening after dinner. I can't help but think back to the first picture that I posted of her right out of surgery. And just 4 (LONG) days later, she is dancing. If you want to see the video, let Mikey or I know and we can email or text it to you. You wouldn't believe it unless you saw it!

Marmee and Guy are still staying at the house with us and they are a huge help. Grammy and Grampy have been coming over also. We couldn't have done it without any of our family here by our side. In fact, last night, Kiley kept going from person to person, giving each person a hug. It was the sweetest thing! It was like she was thanking everone for taking care of her over the last few days. Her hugs are worth a million bucks!

I would also like to thank everyone who brought us meals in the hospital and here to the house and also who is still planning on bringing meals. It has been a huge help not having to worry where our next meal is going to come from :-). Especially since we didn't expect to be "chasing" Kiley around the house all day making sure she doesn't hurt her incision :-). What a great problem to have :-).

Last night, I was able to give Kiley a bath and wash all of the "hospital" off of her. We have to be very careful around her wound and she still has a lot of bruises and stickiness from all of her IV's and blood draws, but you would never know. She was like a whole new girl all clean and beautiful hair flowing!!

I also finished all 4 days of blogging in the hospital. I corrected a few typos (I was delirious) and added some more pictures! I will post more on her progress again soon!