December 29, 2005 - Mid-Morning

Mandy had another good day yesterday and made us all smile quite a bit. Her trach was removed this morning (they left it in overnight just to make sure that her night after the surgery was o.k.) so we don't have to worry about her yanking on that anymore! Her eye surgery went very well and was over quickly. The best part is that the stitches will dissolve in about 3 weeks which is just the amount of time she needs the additional protection. She keeps trying to remove the bandage so we have to play hand police a good bit, but she's getting better as she gets used to it.

We had lots of good Mandyisms. They normally don't allow family into the post-op, but she was pretty agitated waking up (which is more like the Mandy we know!) so they called Kurt and told us to send someone in. When Brenda and Kevin walked into recovery, she immediately began to calm down, but she looked directly at them and said (with a definite royal attitude),"I've been sitting here for awhile".

When they got her back to the hospital recovery room, they played her some Eagles and John Mellencamp to soothe her and she sang along and hummed with the songs. At one point she lifted up Kurt's shirt, rubbed his buddha belly and said,"Baby, you're fat." Luckily, she also told Brenda later in the day that "He was a good boy."

As the boys (Kurt, Kevin and the transportation guy, Matt) moved her from the bed to the gurney to take her back to rehab, they forgot to do the 3 count to let her know that they were moving her which caused her to say (as they put her on the gurney),"What the hell?". She then turned to Brenda and said,"It's always a group of guys."

She's been more sleepy today (not unreasonable the day after surgery) but is going to her therapies, feeding herself and chatting up a storm. We're taking notes and should have lots to share tomorrow -