Nate Shift

Amanda made it pretty clear that one of my duties tonight while staying with Anara was to post to the blog. Luckily for me, Anara has been really good and given me the opportunity to do that. So if you were hoping for a post from Amanda, sorry, but it's my turn tonight. You won't get any medical mumbo-jumbo from me, either. Just the straight scoop.

Right now Anara is high on morphine and playing with her glow worm doll, Ermie (Wormy). I imagine that toy is even more more fun to her than normal while floating on pain medication. I'm glad that she is feeling good. One of the doctors told Amanda today that kids that aren't in pain heal faster. I hope that's true.

Speaking of Amanda, she really has been amazing through all of this. She has been on top of everything and made sure that every step of the way Anara is getting the care that she needs. Today she was the squeaky wheel about Anara's leg, which was still bothering her. The doctors and nurses that had looked at it so far didn't seem to be doing anything about it, so she made a couple calls and now it's being taken care of. Anara has straightened it out a little bit this afternoon and evening, by the way, and doesn't act like it's bothering her too much, so hopefully it will be nothing after all. Still, Amanda was thanked by at least a couple doctors for bringing attention to it.

We are still not sure when exactly we might be taking Anara home, but the feeling is that it is going to be a lot sooner than we thought. We were pretty geared up for a long time here at the hospital, with tons of down time and possibly even boredom. Now it looks like that's not going to happen and instead we need to gear up for a long period (1 month?) of home recovery. That will be good, though.

This is the most talking I've heard from Anara since she's been here. It might be the drugs, but it's been pretty cute. Here is some of what she's jabbering:

"Woof, woof, woof...meow."

"Dee-daw, moudy daw." (See-saw, Margie Daw - a game we play with her)

"Mommy, aw you?" (Mommy, where are you?)

"Hello."

"Moo, moo, daddy." (I think she's trying to sing Old McDonald.)

"No, mow, eah." (Nose, mouth, ears.)

"Nigh-night Ermie." (Night-night, Wormy.)

"Uppa buva doodie." ("Up above the..." trying to sing Twinkle Twinkle.)

"Daddy, daddy." (Trying to get my attention, I think.)

Okay, I'm going to try to get her settled down so I can try to get at least a little sleep. This hasn't been too bad of a night so far. Maybe she really is Daddy's girl.