Tuesday, December 29th

Thank you to everyone for your continued prayer support and words of encouragement in the Comments.

Courtney had a fairly good night.

I stayed in the room with her and Jennifer went to a "Family Sleep Room" (basically a small hotel style room with a bathroom, bed, chair & TV) . I don't think she slept much due to a constant noise (some kind of machine or DVD stuck in repeat mode or something) in the room next to her.

I was able to get some sleep, but Courtney woke up 3 times needing to use the bathroom. They had a portable potty that she could use at her bedside. The first time she got up, she felt like she was going to throw-up, so they gave her some nausea medicine and some more pain medicine. She felt like throwing up again the 3rd time, but it was too early to give her the nausea medicine again. Her throat hurt more after she almost vomited, so they gave her more pain medicine. They have also had her on Oxygen to keep her SATs up where they should be. They are weaning her off of the oxygen as she can tolerate it and keep up her SATs.

Robin (our friend and Courtney's main nurse for most of her stays at Vandy in the early years) was working today and came by to see her this morning. She always gets smiles out of Courtney and got her an ICEE to help soothe her throat. We also saw Dr. Mary Taylor, who is one of the doctors that was there in the early years and was amazed at how much she has grown and how well she is doing.

I left the hospital about 8:30 to come in to do a little work. We are shorthanded this week, so I am going to work a half-day and head back to the hospital. Kelsey is on her way back to the hospital (Courtney has been counting down the time until she gets there since 6:30 this morning.


5:00 - I left work at 2:15 today and found out on my way to the hospital that Courtney had been moved into a room on the 8th floor. She is not needing oxygen assistance currently, but they are still trying to manage her pain. She is having some dizziness when she sits up. She drank some chocolate milk earlier and is now lying down to take a nap while listening to her iPod. We had some visitors from the Family Resource Center (Adelaide and Kim), who brought her a High School Musical balloon and a card from everyone. Kelsey is going to a movie later and spending the night with Lauren again tonight.

10:00 - Courtney has had a good night. She drank a half-pint of chocolate milk earlier tonight and then ate half of a vanilla pudding for supper. She asked for more about 9:00 and ate the other half of the pudding. She did vomit a little earlier tonight, but has not since she ate this time. Jennifer and I got to go down and eat supper together while Robin stayed in the room with Courtney. She has not had to go back on oxygen and they have taken her off the morpheine. She is getting scheduled doses of antibiotics and Lortab for her pain. This is allowing them to stay ahead of the pain and she hasn't complained much at all about it tonight.

She is now laying down to go to sleep and Jenn and I are going to watch a movie. Kelsey is on her way to Lauren's after watching her movie. I will update more tomorrow morning. Good night.

Thank you for your continued prayers for recovery.