Hi again from PICU

Gracie continues to do well, although pain control is still a major challenge. We're trying to increase her oral intake so that we can potentially change her pain medication to something more effective, but she is being a bit stubborn and difficult (imagine that!). We're still trying to work with her and hopefully she'll cooperate a little better soon. I'm pretty confident that this is a control issue, and we will just need to change our approach a bit.


In other exciting news, Dr. Walker (the surgeon) visited this morning and is sooooooo pleased with Gracie's progress. She is wiggling her toes and moving very well, so we got a special visit from the Physical Therapist and...... Gracie got out of bed this morning and went for a ride around the unit in a wheelchair! It was a little painful to transfer into the chair, but I think she really enjoyed it once she got settled. We saw a few genuine smiles which have been few and far between over the last few days. It was short-lived and she quickly began feeling pain again, so we transferred her back to bed and gave her a dose of medicine. All in all she was up in the wheelchair for about 30 minutes which is really good. It also tired her out a bit and she's taking a well-deserved nap right now. We're resting up for a game of BINGO over the hospital TV network.

That's all of the news for now... we hope to be able to move to the general floor today, but it might be tomorrow. We'll keep you updated. Keep praying for our girl and for us. We're still in a tough place right now.