Wed-Fri

So it's been a couple days since I specifically updated on Kayli. She is an amazing child and she has everyone here completely in awe. She has such a strong will to recover and be normal! My days are starting to blend together, so I have to keep reminding myself what has happened and when...

So on Tuesday evening Kayli moved out of ICU. Wednesday, she continued her amazing recovery. She was able to order real food for breakfast, and had french toast. She really enjoyed it and ate 2 whole pieces!

Physical therapy came by and took Kayli on a short walk, they went up and down a flight of stairs!! Kayli did awesome as usual, and even walked at a normal pace. It was a very good morning, though after her trip up the stairs she was a bit tired.

Just before lunch she received a surprise visitor, Daddy brought Emily to see her big sister!! This is the first time they had seen eachother since we got the call on Saturday that a liver was available. Emily has been so worried, and hasn't seen her sister for herself, so this was very good for both of them. Daddy took her to school that morning, but she was not really intrested in going school, so he picked her up shortly after dropping her off for the special treat of spending the day with her family. Sometimes it is easy to forget how this all has affected her. We have done our best to try to keep up with her and make sure she does not miss any of her theater rehearsals and such, but she is such a sweet, understanding child that its easy sometimes just to shuffle her to the side which is a horrible way to think about it, but it happens. Bad mommy, I forgot to get a picture of my babies together, but here is a picture that Emily took herself. The bear on the left is a bear that Emily picked out and stuffed for Kayli at Build-A-Bear during 1 of her November hospital stays. When you press the paw, it's Emily's voice that says "Get well soon Sissy, I love you". The bear on the right is Emily's Aeropostle bear that Santa Claus brought her. Emily arranged this scene, and apparently Aero bear is reading the puppy book and Kay's bear is taking notes...just a guess. :D

Wednesday evening, the nurse washed Kayli's hair for her, and she began to feel a little human again. She changed out of her hospital gown and into a t-shirt, and put on a little eye make-up. She was then visited by Uncle Robert, Aunt Claudia, and her cousins Joshua & Justo. Mark said it was a nice visit, but Kayli was definitely tired after such a busy day.
I missed all of Thursday, as I stayed home to prepare our house for Kayli's homecoming and run some errands. Lancelot, Lily, & Safire seemed to enjoy me being home, and I took Lance & Lily to the doggy/kitty day spa for baths. They came home looking and smelling GREAT and both seemed to even feel special! Safire didn't go because she is short-haired and doesn't shed, and seems to keep herself very clean. For those who don't know, Lily is our dog, Lancelot is Kayli's 22 lb maine coon cat and Safire is Emily's new little kitty she got for her birthday in September.
Mark said Kayli continued her amazing recovery all day on Thursday. She walked several times, was doing pretty much everything on her own, and had put on make-up again. Dr Mieles removed one of her wound drains from her abdomen and they took her off of IV fluids and cut back on some of her medications. She had visits from our friend Robin S and Greg (Aunt Sunny's brother). They had a good day.

Today is Friday, and though they had predicted Kayli would go home today, the doctors decided to keep her just one more day as a precaution. Nothing wrong with her at all, but they changed one of her medication dosages and needed to keep her one more day to monitor how her blood levels respond to the dosage change. I'm ok with this, though she was disappointed- definitely better to be safe than sorry. Dr Mieles certainly didn't want to keep her, and did all he could not to, but in the end it may just have been for the better. This morning she was visited by her great friends Rachel and Elijah. You may remember them, they were at Dickens on the Strand with us back in December. They brought Kayli a tasty breakfast of french toast from I-Hop, Kayli's favorite! She scarfed it down apparently!

Kayli's nurse for the past 3 days has been Heidi, and she is awesome! She was actually Kayli's nurse one day back during her first hospital stay in November. Today, they played a round of "Twilight Hangman", and it really seemed to cheer Kayli up. They had fun today, and as you see from the pictures Kayli is now an expert on all of her monitoring equipment and can connect and disconnect as she needs to, and does so quite often. This evening is staying very quiet. Greg and his fiancee Carley are here now visiting, and its been a really nice and relaxing visit. They brought a movie that we all watched together and now we are relaxing sharing band stories! :)

Excited about going home tomorrow! Everythign is looking great right now, Kayli looks so wonderful and is feeling pretty good.

I have had many friends, family, and supporters ask "what's next for kayli?" Tomorrow I will post an update and try to answer those questions. Thank you again for all of your prayers ans well wishes.