Long time between posts....

Well its been a while I know.
Is there anyone out there anymore??

What do you say. I just stopped. Everything it felt like.
I haven't scrapped in a very long time.
I haven't taken a proper photo in longer.
Sewing, not even thought about it
The garden, well it needs some attention but we did have a crop while I was gone.

After Emilys accident i threw myself into life as a way of coping. But as we drew closer to the year of that accident and it got colder last year things started to fall apart for me. I just didn't want to do anything. Depression was a title thrown around. And I guess i was. PTSD is still an issue. Even two years later I still have flashbacks? I stopped talking to people and as a results friendships suffered, but no matter what I did, I couldn't stop it all from happening. I lost hope.

With my husband to talk to, I have slowly been putting myself back together. I'm not who I was, but I feel better. I have done nothing special, just taken some time for me. Time to quietly, in my own way deal with what happened to us. Some days I barely made it out of bed, others I got in the car and actually went somewhere. Mostly I was locked within myself trying to come to terms with myself. Getting over the feeling of motherhood failure. It still haunts me that if one small thing changed that day none of it would of happened. If I changed one thing that day. But you can't do that.

Life continues on. And so I jump back on the bandwagon of life and move forward. The past few weeks I started to crochet again. Much of it in thanks to Mel goodsells blog. I love to crochet this time of year. Keeps you warm in front of the tv and it forfills my crafty need when its too cold to be away from the fire in the scrap room.

While Emily was back in hospital in may, I turned to knitting again. And it made me smile. Finding those small snippets of my personality coming out again.

Just this past week, I have had to ideas for canvas's, one for my amazing new niece and I can't wait to start. I forget the last time I had inspiration to do anything arty. I even want to sew!

Tonight dan is going to start the fire in my art room so I can do just that and I can't wait. It feels good.


Heres my beautiful niece with my baby brother, I can't believe he is a father. Brooklyn. I'm so excited about her. I can't wait to get home and meet her, but it will stll be a few months.
Emily
hehe, she is such a ham. The things you find on your phone when you leave it where she can touch it! And just how did they learn to use an i phone before me, said owner of the at times frustrating thing. Now I can use it and have found all the little ons and offs I love it.

Can you believe she will be four in just 10 days? I can't.
The new improved arm~! I don't think I ever shared a pick of the graft she had. It covered that whole space. At the beginning of May she was admitted for the first lot of reconstructive surgery. I lovely five day stay, or so they told us. I really should of known better.

The first day, a nine hour stretch in surgery. Where they took that large expanse of skin you see from her back and relocated that, muscle, fat other tissues to her forearm and then under a microscope reattached it and the blood supply. The first night she had half hourly obs on her arm, needless to say dan and I slept very little for the first few days after.

Then Day five comes and everyone is so happy, the blood supply has been good and what we could see of the transfer looked good. until they pulled all the dressing down. Then all hell took place.

The part of the flap over her wrist was to tight, they think, it cut blood flow and the layers of skin died. They released the pressure and hoped for the best. And we sat in her humid hospital room (humidity was needed for her arm to heal) for another week and a half. It was horrible. The heat got to us all. She wasn't allowed out of bed. It is so hard to keep a three year old entertained when they want to get out of bed!


Anyway, back to theatre, another skin graft and another three week stay in hospital to add to her record. ANother month spent with Ronald Mac house. And may was over. It took so long for the graft to actually heal they thought it was going to reject at one point. BUt her poor arm was so stressed its not surprising really. So for the following eight weeks we went to melbourne twice a week mostly so they could keep an eye on it. And then over the space of five days, it just up and healed and all the worry was gone. Amazing really. Her doctor things he will be able to get rid of the graft in time without to much effort and it won't limit anything theyw ant to do next. THankgod!

so now we are on a six month recovery wait until the next part. Tendon transfers. Beginning of next year at this point. I however expect it to be anything but easy when it occurs!

Thankgod for family. My dad came and took care of lilly for a month while all this went on. She was only in Melbourne for the final weekend. My poor dad thought he would get to spend some time with us. but it wasn't to be again! And now we are all kinds of homesick and can't really find any time to get home before next year.



Lillys teacher left at the end of last term. And I had to task of making her goodbye cake. Cupcakes..:) I hadn't done anything like this in so long. And it was so much fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed making cakes and icing them. A small amount of knowledge goes a long way.


And finally my two being silly in the thai restaurant in ballarat for a girl dan works with birthday. oh the noise, lucky it was a sunday and not to busy!

My heart is with my dear friend Kirsty Piper this week as she deals with the loss of her mum. Where thinking of you and we love you and we wish we were with you. We are there even if we can't physically be with you.

have a good week everyone

jacqui

guess what i got back today

lets see if u can guess!
hmmm lots of photos on this post!
yes i got my camera back all fixed and good to go...woohoo. cheaper than expected too so another good thing.

we went to melbourne today for emily...more on that later but waiting for me when we got home in the post was my handmade christmas ornament swap. are these not the cutest stockings...a big thanks to em from http://www.embelish.blogspot.com/

thats our handcarved main fireplace in the lou nge area too. its so beautiful. and its nice to have it to playwith over christmas too..:)

a close up of the detail....they r just so cute

would u look at this cheeky monkey!
i dont think its any secret that i so didnt want to do our hospital visit today. i wasnt really ready to do the hospital thing again. but i told myself to tough up yesterday. well we had a great visit. emilys doctors cant believe the range of motion she has gained back and decided that they would wait on surgery to see just how far she can go. they fully expected to be booking us in for surgery and had been discussing all sorts of complicated reconstructions in the background. and while it will still be needed it was all postponed today. thankyou! so her next review is in march and again we will expect surgery to be in april. i walked out today peaceful. happy that i wasnt going to spend the new year juggling all sorts of things and can just focus on a short visit home, and setting lilly up at school before we go off to melbourne. where i will then be able to focus on emily without alot of other worries. so finally good news really. i am so happy that emilys doctors saw the range of motion that jen and i see each week during therapy, her doctors cant believe that she has certain up movements that by a text book she really shouldnt have. her thumb has improved out of sight and they witnessed her use of the left arm, which emily now includes normally. all music to our ears and eyes really. its given them a clearer picture of what reconstruction they will need to do and its all less than expected. i love that she excided their expectations. we were sent home with a large keep doing what your doing chorus.
well done my beautiful girl your amazing!

now i do wish i turned these cards...but im way to lazy right now to go fix the problem and upload again so u will just have to turn your head hehe.....but i made these cards for the december dare. http://www.aussiedares.blogspot.com/ the dare isnt due til tomorrow..:)

ps diary swapers...your swaps should be in the mail or very close to it..:)
i recieved a love box of goodies which i will photograph and share ove rthe next few days..:)

support ronald mcdonald house this weekend

i cant even begin explaining just how thankful we are to ronald mcdonald house. You never imagine u will need them, you think what a great thing they r for the familys of sick children and if your anything like us dont really think much more about it. Until u need them. housing for familys is very much in need close to the childrens hospitals around australia. we were so lucky to be able to use the facilities of ronald mac house at the royal childrens in melbourne for our entire stay eariler this year, i have no idea how i would of fed myself, showered, and had a small place to call home during those weeks. knowing that lilly was safe over at the house with either myself or dan or my dad or mum made things just a little bit easier to cope with.

i wish we were in the position to make a donation that would make a difference, like many of the familys helped by ronald mac house we r not. we donate all our change each and every time we enter a mcdonalds and across the year i guess that adds up to a few hundred dollars. right now in aid of ronald mcdonald house mcdonalds is selling cookie houses. the cookies r from byron bay cookie company and r yummy. $2 from every house sold goes direct to ronald mcdonald house charity. if thats all u can do this week we urge u to step inside a mcdonalds this week and purchase a house. small amounts add up to make a difference.

we will be on hand at mcdonalds wendouree on saturday morning for breakfast to lend our support to mchappy day as funds r raised for the chairty. it is of course a cause held dear to the hearts of everyone in my family after emilys accdient. to read more of our story emilys accident can be found in the labels of my blog

be generous if u can

so you think you can scrap 6

ok this weeks theme almost saw me pull out. i didnt know if i could do it, but u know since i got it on the paper and ive rewritten it and read it now a few times i havent cried since?? im sure there will be more tears but for now i take the cheap therapy!
the theme...journalling (about something sad..eek), only one pattern paper (bo bunny doubled sided i used) had to have 100 words or plus and have handwritten something on the page.
the journalling reads:
one moment, one decision, one split second and life as we know it changed forever. Ive asked these questions of myself a million times and more. WHY were we there? at that moment WHY was there a truck reversing when its illegal in the snow and WHY wasnt emily in my arms?? WHY WHY and it doesnt matter how many changes i make to the story on THAT day disarster was going to happen to us.
I know how lucky i am that emily is alive and well. Im all to totally aware that things could of been so very much worse on that day. That truck did so much damage. Emilys arm was damaged, the type of damage that lasts a lifetime. We were all emotionally damaged I HOPE NOT BEYOND REPAIR. but I was and still am ROCKED to the core. I will never understand WHY this happened. What was the purpose??? WHY??I didnt need reminding to look after my children, I already knew i was blessed, they are always the focus of our life. So WHY?? what was the purpose of this? Emily doesnt deserve to carry this her whole life, so WHY? and so continues my unanswered question... WHY

this stuff is in my head and heart all the time. this was a great way to get it out. but i also feel like a bit of a heal when u read some of the journalling in the gallery, while it doesnt take away from what happened to us it gives me a little more perspective i think...hard to explain...i guess i was left with she is still here and pretty much ok, get over it sort of feeling....i know i wont ever get over it...but im thankful that i could have her in the first place and that we didnt ever lose her.

an emily update: i havent done this for a while. my girl had her hand therapy transfered to ballarat to a wonderful lady called jen. she has a little boy not much younger than emily and i sometimes think this makes a world of difference in whats happening. when we left the hospital we had a list of exercises to do with emily..they quickly became agony for us all as she didnt like it and screamed the house down until it was over...and when u r spending 5 or 6 minutes like that 5 times a day its wearing!! anyway enter jen. and a big change to home therapy. its all play based and manipulating what she is playing with...woohoo!!! this last two weeks...a bag of rice for playing with a pouring and digging in. we r on the look for turning toys too. emily has alot more function back in her hand and arm too...its still slow and and its still limited but we can see huge improvements. some wrist turn...its so slight but its there when she picks up a spoon and pours the rice. her thumb is starting to strengthen slightly too which is helpful for getting her pressure garmet on! an overall improvement in fuction. she still wants to write and draw with her left arm and always tries it first then changes when she cant move her arm and wrist, but i watched her the last few days get that wrist and hand in nearly a good enough position to make a mark on the page.....I HAVE HOPE. i hope it continues for her second surgeon accessment, but at the same time I HOPE kind of that they deal with the remaining surgery soon.

hospital day

today was a hospital day, maybe our last regular weekly one!
it was a hard visit today
finally emily was reviewed by one of her surgeons (yes she has a large team of doctors that start with fellows, professors and end with heads of micro surgery) lots of talk about where she has come from (more of my own realisations about how lucky i am to still have her with all her limbs in tack), and lots of talk and trying to work out what she has in terms of function (basically what they thought she would have) and then finally the very long list of what she doesnt have, which i listened to while trying to stop myself from crying. they are however happy with her progress and with the work they have done so far, i guess it was just hard for me to listen to the whats missing thing. they r still hopeful of more improvement.

still thinking more surgery in jan, thumb reassignment to try and give it more use, maybe muscle then and a fat flap. i always knew we had more surgery to go...but to hear that she faces a life of surgery is pretty scary. they expect that she has several surgeries that are corrective then every few years to help with growth and assess where everything is at, probably until she is 18 years old! we were thinking that maybe by the time she was 12 or 13 we might be able to put the hospital behind us, but it appears not! Its sort of thrown me a bit.

anyway...ot and physio is being transfered to ballarat so that it can be intensive we hope for next week, but we will find out tomorrow for sure. otherwise another week of melbourne
she did get her pressure garment today but which is good, which has this gel silcone sheet that goes over the graft itself first. its funny stuff. so goodbye to crape bandages and tube grip stuff...thankgod, i was stick of seeing that stuff. she will be in the other for 23 hours of everyday! wont that be nice during summer! She gets an hour break after her bath every night from it all.

anyway, i dont really know how to record how i feel about it all, just that today was a little to much for me, but everything is as ok as its going to be for a while
another review in 2 to 3 months..ya!

small knitted dishcloth...plus an emily update

small knitted dishcloth
you will need
4 1/2 mm needles
lion brand cotton yarn

heres the pattern..again im calling it mine but happy to face the fact it could be out there somewhere...its based on a pretty basic knitting stitch. i didnt have a pattern.

cast on 37 stitches
knit 3 rows.

knit 3 then start pattern of k1 p1 until last 3 stitches and knit to end
repeat 10 times
knit 3 rows

repeat pattern 15 times
knit 3 rows

repeat pattern 10 times
knit 3 rows
cast off
weave in ends.

pretty easy to whip up...it was a melbourne day for us and i made 2 in the car. so quick and easy.
i will put these up in the market store $4 each or 4 for $12

yep it was a melbourne day today...back to the hospital. we went last week to, but i didnt deal with last week very well and was never in the right space to blog about it...still dont know if i will get through without crying...but todays news was excellent
last week we went, we were happy with the healing of the graft after a week of us looking after it and we came home with just a tube sock type dressing and instructions to do more of the same cream etc. that was great. as part of our session we see the ot, (she is fantastic) she wasnt quite so happy and was quite scared for our girls hand and wrist. as u can imagine alarm bells ring. last week her wrist was really starting to turn out to the left and her hand was sort of stuck in a claw like position...she was still using it, but it was resting in this horrible position. basically things we knew could happen were happening...from her original hand repair we have known that the muscle that her thumb tendons where contected to wasnt as strong as we all wanted. her thumb doesnt sit in the right position because of this, and its this tendon that is meant to help her wrist stay in the correct position...it wasnt doing this, the stronger muscles where taking over hence the left going wrist. fear was sparked that she would be back in surgery sooner rather than later to have the thumb repaired (something we were hoping they would wait until jan to do) we were sent home with new resting braces and new exercises to try and shock it awake and make it start working. our appointment made with our surgeon to review this and make a plan. EEEEK....i stressed and worried all week of course
move onto this week...all that worry and now they think its responding with the new everything and it may wait until jan. im crossing my fingers for that. all our news was so much better today. her graft is starting to soften (which is good for the gliding of muscles under the skin..or what she has left there anyway) her knuckles have made a reappearence (woohoo), her hand while not corrected has responded to the brace and its staying more or less in the safe position they want it in. her thumb is still an issue, but a day brace was made for this to help keep it in the correct position 24/7 without restricting her wrist movement which is getting stronger every day and finally she is healed enough to have her pressure garment (sp) ordered. woohoo. i had no idea how long u had to wait for it all to be ready for the pressure garment.
and the thing that really tells us she is on the right road...we dont have to go back next week..woohoo...her garment will be posted to us and we will go back for our surgeon appointment the week after. a whole week with no melbourne trip...we wont know ourselves!

It will be nice to have the travel break (seeing as we all have colds), in the mean time the hospital r trying to find us the right person so we can travel to ballarat for intensive rehab instead of going to melbourne. but it has to be the right person.

i think thats it for me..: )
but one last thing
pst we have had spring sunshine for two days...its so lovely!

scrap jack

heres my scrapjack for this month...its all on canvas...im not sure im 100% happy with it...something about the white squares...i wish i washed them yellow....but two late now. the photo is a fav even thou it was taken in low light so the quality is a bit yuck...therefore the missing eyes...but sometimes u just have to scrap the yuck pics. cause they r really not yuck. some of the stuffon this page came from last months lime tart kit.
this came out while we were in hospital...the one today card is mine...made with the inspiration of emilys first birthday last year.

and finally
on thursday emilys hospital visit went well...no drugs at all and the only thing she cried about was the tape that was on her skin..not bad really....no tape really used this week. there is still one mucky part at the top that wasnt grafted and was just left to heal...its not responding as quickly as they would like...so im not sure what that means...its wait and see that bit...i guess it could be another graft if it doesnt improve over the next 2 weeks. other than that the large graft itself is good...we now have to take the dressing down each day and rub cream into it to keep it moist which is good and bad...good that its at that point because its healing...bad that i have to deal with it in a totally visual way every day now...it takes all my guts to see it every week, but i think its partly because im wishing it to be so much better and not infected and all that...anyway i hope it gets easier to see on a daily basis. she is also allowed big breaks in wearing her plastic brace to play and use her arm and hand as well as she can...we also have exercises to do with her to get it freely moving which it isnt...but only on the second day of those and it seemed eaiser for her to do today. we r working on doing 3 exercises 10 times 5 times a day...we got it done 3 times yesterday...going for 4 times today and then 5 tomorrow!

you will never guess

but about an hour ago i walked into my house!!!
yes thats right finally 4 weeks after i walked out of my house for a few days away i have FINALLY walked back in to it!!!
woohoo

we had a great weekend just hanging out together in melbourne...we didnt do much of anything, wanting to stay a little bit quiet for emily, but it was fantastic to not sleep in a hospital.! and i know tonight will be even better...to sleep in my bed with my pillow, i cant wait. im actually shocked at how tired i feel tonight seeing as i slept pretty well over the weekend.

we had a pretty emotional day today, it was the first dressing change that we were at, and seeing emilys arm was pretty hard to take. its looking healthy and its healing well apparently...but for her mother and father seeing it for the first time it was confronting and upsetting, i had to walk away after that and have a little cry. emily who was drugged for the dressing change was more amazed at how it looked i think, but as i say she could of been seeing purple dancing elephants for all i know! we will go back on friday to do it all again, and then we r hoping not til tuesday of the following week because MONDAY is emilys birthday! AND come hell or high water that girl is having the birthday she should get this year!

speaking of her birthday my dh and my dad got started on her kitchen, its not finished but i will share a progress shot tomorrow. it needs sanding and painting and a few things put on it, but its looking so cool. we got all the pots and plates and stuff to go with it yesterday while we were out and about, and i will start making some felt food wednesday or thursday, but im looking forward to her getting her present.

a big big thankyou to my dad, who left to go home before i could see him. thankyou so much dad, i couldnt of gotten through the last few weeks without you. for those that didnt know, my dad came down from qld a week after the accident to help us look after lilly while i was stuck in the hospital with emily.

getting out

ok wonderful people
we r getting out of here to ronald mac today
i cant believe i have just taken the first load of things back to our room!!!!
i never thought this day would come last week and here it is

i will of course lose internet access over the weekend until emily is admitted back to the ward on monday for the day for all the dressing changes and physio stuff...but thats ok and then i hope i will be home for the rest of the week and back in maybe thursday or friday.

thanks for the advice on what to do re the charges
i come down on the side of no court...but we have decided to get some legal advice before making the final call as we will go after some sort of comphensation for emily as we now dont know what the future holds for her (that path is still foggy) and there r some costs that will need to be covered to provide her with the care she requires. We will go with whatever the lawyer says is right i guess, and what will be the best outcome for emily. thanks for sharing your thoughts...its a question i dont like too.. :(

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYONE i know we will

100%

her graft was a 100% take!!!!!!!!!!!
not one part of it had to be repaired or cut back.

i have seen photos...which as her mum was pretty hard to look at, but at the same time i was amazed at the healing that has occurred. The bruising which im sure u can imagine was a shade of purple and blue i never want to see again is gone, and the graft itself is very red, (of which i was prepared for) but its clean and while it doesnt like right it doesnt look sore either, so i was very pleased. There is about a 1/2 cm depth of skin and tissue missing from her arm to the graft, its quite an odd shape the wound itself...its not rectangle like i sort of imagined....it will be like that for the next 6 or so months while it all heals, and then function assessment will occur. They r sort of hopeful that her muscles will respond without further work, but cant made a final assessment yet....if she requires no muscle work the space will be filled in by a fat flap and left. its all pretty amazing.

the better news is that it looks like we will be released to ronald mcdonald house for the weekend, back on monday for dressing changes and stuff, some education for us from physio and for redressing and then home until later that week when we will be back for dressing change again.....i could be home by monday night or maybe tuesday morning depending....but oh my god!!!!!
i know we r still a long way from finished....but i feel sort of like the nightmare part is finished with sort of....we were however left with a decision to make over the charge to the person that hit emily on whether we want it to go to court....i dont think i could sit through a trial, even thou i know this person deserves to be punished for what happened....im just not sure what it will do, it doesnt change anything and it doesnt return her arm to before the accident...what would u do??

positive

i was a negative person yesterday wasnt i

so this post is an im thankful post

im thankful that my little girl is still here (i cant describe in words how much, its indescribable)
im thankful that emily has her arm
im thankful that we r in a world class hospital
im thankful for the nurses and doctors helping emily get better
im thankful for the miracle of modern medicine
im thankful that emily is allowed out today to see the hospital and over the ronald mac for lunch together as a family
im thankful that my parents have been here to help me out
im thankful that my children have a wonderful father and i have a fantastic husband
im thankful that i can sleep beside my daughter while in hospital
im thankful for the support i have from my family, friends and the scrapbooking community in general....THANKYOU just doesnt seem to cut it...but THANKYOU

more wishes needed

ok so in about 30 or so hours
we will know if the skin graft has taken and is healing well enough for us to go home by the weekend
i so want this to happen

im sick of living in a hospital
im sick of having my family split between here and there
im sick of not being there when both my girls need me
im sick of medical procedures, and the smaller ones i have to be involved with
im sick of sitting by a cot in a curtained room day after day
im sick of hearing hi-5 (even if thankful for them when its the only thing that emily is happy to see, usually at 4 in the morning!!!)

i hate the fact that my little girls now know that mummy and daddy cant always protect them from stuff that happens in the world
i hate the fact that this will change our lives forever...i will forever be scared to walk near the back of a car with the kids (which will make shopping interesting), i will forever be scared that the kids will dart out on the road when they r not holding my hand while walking on the sidewalk, i will forever be scared of what others r doing in their cars while we r near them and i will forever be scared of what this means for emily in the future (i have told lilly about what emilys arm will look like, and while we will love her no matter what her arm looks like i fear what kids r going to say to her during the school years. I will actually be thankful for the rest of my life that that patch of skin and arm is actually there, but how do u explain that to a child experiencing it.)

i am on a more positive note...driven at the moment to when the time is right GIVE BACK! we have received so much from so many people in the last few weeks. i feel that i have a mission to make sure ronald mc house, starlight, and the hospital to name a few are part of the give back feeling i have. And i hope to part of major fund raising events during the later part of this year and the start of next. im also going to look into becoming a play therapist....it is just lovely what these people who were once teachers do for the children in the hospital. i love teaching always will, there is nothing quite like hearing a child read for the first time and knowing u had something to do with it, but seeing the smile on emilys face when the therapist comes to see us or we go to the play room is something i would like to give back to people too.


last night lilly finally opened up about what she saw that day 3 weeks ago....and she remembers emily being stuck and mummy and daddy screaming it must of been a scary sound for her to hear. It makes me still cry, when i think that i am only just now starting to deal with her pain from the accident. which i am told is all on the track of how kids deal with trauma. Its taken that long for her to want to talk about it.

ok i wasnt going to post today....but had stuff to get out of my head...its full today of thinking!
hope everyone is well and taking care

its amazing

what a good sleep can do

emily had the best sleep last night, the best one she has had in 20 days! woohoo
we both slept well

mind u she had a big day yesterday
music therapy, clown doctors and then the starlight foundation christmas in july celebrations. it was a busy one

today she is so bright and happy, playing with a few new presents from yesterdays celebrations. starlight foundation and clown doctors r fantastic. they really do brighten the days of children stuck in hospital beds.....we saw all the captains from the starlight room again this morning up on the wards...such a great organisation.
funtastic toys donated all the presents....a big woohoo to t hem...great work!

not much happening today....emily is pretty much for the moment pain free without meds this m orning and will i expect her to get more uncomfortable as the day continues its great to not be forcing panadol down her throat for a little while...she has become an expert panadol spiter!

cranky today

well yesterday was filled with temp's and lots of leg soreness

her donor site was quite painful yesterday....and she had quite a big temp for most of the day...but it thankfully broke late last night and it seems gone today.....woohoo....
but lots of little tests to check on her central line in case happened....all seems well.

today she is cranky, but having music therapy atm so i hope that makes her a little brighter.

me.....im dieing to get home and be normal, and creative, and just be with my family....a big thankyou to everyone that reminds me of my strength to cope with all this.. :)

ITS DONE!!!

skin graft happened
she is awake, and mellow...i thinks i could do with some of her drugs atm!

another 8 or 9 days in hospital maybe...and then a few weeks of twice a week visits to the hospital for dressing changes but the length will get longer with each visit.

they think she will be able to grab and hold things and let them go, and thats where it will end. lots of phiso and then some decisions about the next stage to make later this year.

thanks to everyone one that sent things, prayers, thoughts and wishes....all was used.. :)
im feeling more pos today...tired but pos!

MY GIRL

during her tlc visitusing some of the craft items they shared with us. and the travel take anywhere magna doodle board.....not pictured more hi5 than i know what to do with hehe

this must be about 10 days ago now....she is looking so much better now....and is currently upstairs moving all over the cot hehe and playing with her sister.

skin graft TOMORROW!

15 DAYS

15 days since the accident
15 days of not sleeping
15 days of worry
15 days of being so scared i cant describe it
15 days of panadol, nurofen, tramadol, morphine, drip lines and endo (something or other)
15 days and 7 surgeries, 7 anesthetics (sp), 7 visits to pre-op and recovery
15 days of wishing this didnt happen, of wishing i could go back and change something and of wishing i had my family at home and safe and sound and WHOLE!
15 days of actually understanding things like drains, central lines, iv's, what different drugs do (information i could of done without.
15 days of complete emotional breakdown, and some days its very PUBLIC

im a little over hospital and the whole thing.
we were finally moved to the right ward after surgery this morning so thats a good sign. (and finally meaning that i will be able to see our dr's each and everyday when they do rounds in the mornings, instead of being left out for at some point later that day!)
we had surgery this morning more looking, but a yes we will graft on Wednesday if it all continues as is. its looking good (whatever that means!) after the graft we should be out in 5 days...but i say SHOULD...who would know really. I wont let myself think of home until im actually there!

miss lilly is doing ok, they came down yesterday and i spent the night with lilly and we cooked and did normal things together. she will go back on tuesday night for preschool on wednesday and then come back on sunday with daddy again, if i dont need a break before then, which im going to say i probably will. miss emily is in good spirits, she was giggling before surgery and joking around which was very nice.....she is currently asleep, which is nice as she isnt sleeping at night much at all.

we r now located on 4 main, room 6 if your looking for us.
otherwise we r going ok, and things r progesing in the right way.

quickly

emily's surgery today was more wait and see

hoping for monday or wednesday for the final in this series of ops

she had to have a central line put in today, which sent me on a bit of an emotional thing...but thats going to keep happening


more info about our follow up surgeries in the coming year and next
a bit of work for her thumb movement will be done
muscle work and a flap at a later stage.

so that means for this first part....just skin grafting.

take care everyone...my family will be here over the weekend...so dont worry if i dont post or answer emails

a new day

and a break from her drip line!!! woohoo, morphine was turned off this morning and they said she could be drip free except for her anti's! small things mean ALOT atm!
she is so happy just dealing with her drain tube only, we have been up and in the wheelchair and sat out of bed for breakfast....EXTREMELY early this morning i might point out!
she is currently with the play therapy girl, a lovely job she has, bringing smiles to the faces of bed stuck kids.
this afternoon im hoping to get her in a real bath, but its still up for question. and then we r off to the starlight foundation room....the starlight express room, for a bit of play, craft and not being in her cot. im looking forward to it as much as she is! or thou i will need some very strong coffee to make it through the day i think!

op yesterday went ok, getting very ready for the skin graft...they have been waiting for the healing of the wound to start naturally because thats really great for the graft to take...and it started woohoo...we r in again on friday, they cant say one way or the other what will happen in the op, the chief of hand and microsurgery needs a look first...but she could just come out of that surgery with the first of the grafting done if things continue down this path, if they dont they will have to create a flap which will have fatty tissue, muscle and all sorts of things in it and then the graft on that. then a few days in a HEATED room (a very hot room they tell me) and its the rolls royce of plastic surgery ops.......im so impressed by plastics...its so much more than boobs and noses.....its an impressive thing to be part of.

all going well

with no real news to update

surgery must of gone well this morning but the dr's raced right into another case and i havent seen them to find out....crossing fingers for the next step to start from now!

chris they are chasing up the gift...it has apparently arrived here we just havent seen it...email me so i know what it is