Apologies for not writing last night, we came home to spend time with Abby and today Jen and I went back to the hospital but I came back home in the afternoon to relieve my parents a bit.  Jen’s taking a shift at the hospital by herself.

We are so thankful that the past two days have been very uneventful for Maddie.  She’s completely weaned off of the morphine drip, they’ve removed or are going to remove almost all the lines in her arms and legs, and she’s moving around enough that they’ve now tied her arms down with soft restrains lest she pull on anything important.  She still has a big line in her arm for medicine.

When she woke up yesterday, she didn’t really open her eyes, but she did lift her arms and rub her head and eyes.  Today she was more awake and both Jen and I saw her open her eyes and follow our heads with her eyes, which is something that she hasn’t clearly done before.  But they are still giving her a mild sedative so she quickly fell asleep again.

The CT scan, blood tests, liver tests, echo/sonograms, etc. have all been positive and she is breathing enough on her own that they are thinking about removing the breathing tube (extubation). They have a way of “turning off” the machine to see how she does and the first test this afternoon went very well.  They plan on testing her again tomorrow AM and if all goes well, to remove the tube tomorrow so she can rest/recover before the pacemaker procedure next week.

Driving into DC today, we noticed that all the locust blossoms are out now.  They are numerous and delicious (if you’ve tried).  Reminded me of how God takes care of even these tiny flowers, the bees that rely on them, and the birds all around.  How much more so will He take care of us – of Maddie?

Jen and I are humbled to learn about all the friends and family who are praying for us across the country and even across the oceans.  We want to thank everyone again and ask for continued prayers for recovery.