There's No Place Like Home!

So we're home!  Surprised?  Yeah, us too!  The criteria for our homecoming was that Molly could tolerate oral pain meds and take in enough fluids by mouth so that she would no longer need her IV.  This is by far the easiest, quickest discharge we've had in our 7 hospital admittances (that's including her birth, btw) and ironically after her most serious procedure yet!  At 8:30 a.m. Dr. Smith was saying we might get to go home tonight, by 1:00 p.m. that turned to a definitely and by 3:30 we were pulling out of the CHOA driveway.  Incredible!  Molly just melted right into her bed when we got home...the most restful I've seen her in 3 days.  We followed soon thereafter and the whole family got a good two hour nap before having to give the first at-home dose of her 3 oral medicines--one for pain, one for bladder spasms, one for the UTI that she has (not unusual after this surgery evidently).  Then it was time for a sponge bath before laying her down again...she's barely kept her eyes open since we left the hospital.  And while we were at the hospital she barely closed them!  I'm gonna cut it short...I'll give you a rundown on these pics and then I'm gone for the night.  

Enjoying some TV and crackers with her balloon bouquet and her-size hippo (from Ryan's group at Cox):

 Coloring.  A favorite activity for us both:)

 Her sponge bath tonight.  Here you can see the double diaper system.  The bottom diaper is open and the blue and green tubes are threaded through a hole in the first diaper.

 Here you can see it a bit better.  The blue tube is a foley catheter, for urine, which will be taken out Monday. The two green tubes are from stints in her incision.  Those will be left in for 10 days.  The double diapering started just today (so that we could take her home) and keeps the tubes free and clear from any #2 going on in the first diaper.  Before this afternoon, the tubes emptied into bags instead.  Her urine will have blood in it for up to 2-3 weeks.

 And here's the incision:

 It's quite a big incision for such a little girl!  It will of course appear smaller as she grows.  It's a bit like a c-section incision in size and placement.  The two stints are held in place by stitches in the corner and will be removed in 10 days (I think I already said that).

The white plastic thing is a clamp that held her catheter in place when it drained to a bag.  We took it off tonight.

 It seems she'll sleep well tonight in her own bed, she was dosing off just sitting up while we were singing her goodnight song tonight!  We're hoping the meds will ward off any bladder spasms through the night...that's the WORST part...poor baby!  I'll state the obvious one more time and then it's off to bed.  We're glad to be home.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow and thank you for your prayers!