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After spending about 16 hours in the IMC, we were discharged from the hospital just before 11am yesterday.  So sweet to be home.  Upon getting home April insisted on swinging before going in the house and then had 4 days of walking to make up.  She was pretty wobbly starting out but it didn’t take long before she was steady enough for Mommy not to follow her everywhere.  Words cannot describe how grateful I am to God to be through this surgery and with flying colors.  As Abe and April run all over the house chasing each other and laughing I can’t help but tell Him, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”  This experience served as a strong reminder not rely on ANYTHING of this world for our stability, but only God alone.

We actually ended up going home on three medications, all of them which she’ll be on for about six weeks.  A blood pressure medicine to regulate her blood pressure, a diuretic to get rid of extra body fluid, and baby aspirin to thin her blood.  We had some “fun” chasing down her perscriptions yesterday when CVS told us they couldn’t get them until Monday.  Uh, that’s not going to work!!  Evidently they should have been filled before we were discharged.  Turns out all we needed was to find a pharmacy that could compound drugs; after a call to our surgeon and cardiologist, Walgreens a half a mile away did the trick.

We got what could be a brief taste of the “new and energized” April last night.  She took a good (albeit slightly late) nap in her crib yesterday.  And then was wired up and didn’t go to sleep until 1:45am on Sunday morning!!  And then woke up at 7:20!!  Oh my head!  I don’t know if this was just adrenaline at being home, some bad habits that we developed at the hospital, or the “new” April.  Maybe a combination of all three.  And then, even though she’d had only 5.5 hours of sleep, she refused to nap.  Thankfully, she went down fairly easily this evening, so maybe there’s hope of getting back into our normal routine without waiting 6 full weeks to do it.  We’ll see.

We said goodbye to Grandpa Roger (Granpy) today and said hello to Grandma Mim (Grammy).  So grateful to have the help as we adjust back into our normal lives.  April is on some pretty limited activity restrictions, primarily to give her sternum time to heal.  No climbing or riding trikes and stuff.  That means no playgrounds.  Not sure how we’re going to pass the time for six weeks without playgrounds, but having company in town will be a life saver for at least the first two!!  We’ll have a couple follow up appointments in the next few weeks and they’ll do another ultrasound to check her heart again.  Please pray it shows that nothing has changed since the surgery and the fix is holding steady.

Overall she is truly doing amazing.  It’s hard to believe that she had such a major surgery only 5 days ago.  And friend of ours was sweet enough to bring us dinner tonight and commented, “You’d never know that she just had surgery!”  Running and laughing all over the place.  What a sweet gift.