Happy 6th Month Birthday!

Suri Elizabeth,
What a month you had this month. You had your first Thanksgiving and you were an excellent traveler as we bounced back and forth from family to family. Then the week after you had to survive a whole week without mom. You and your father did quite nicely and even sent me daily pictures so I wouldn't miss you too much. The beginning of December was a little rough for all of us as you had your surgery on your right lung on Dec. 7th. Dr. Lund saw us on the 22nd and gave you a clean bill of health for the holidays. So here we are right before your first Christmas and Suri we couldn't be luckier parents. This year has had many ups and downs from job changes, to finding out you had something wrong with you lung, to your birth and then your surgery but one thing is for certain we are truly blessed that you are in our lives. We love watching you grow everyday and ever changing. This past month you have conquered sitting on your own, baths by yourself, getting up on all fours and scooting and finally you have your first 2 bottom teeth coming in. We can't wait to watch you become mobile this upcoming month and grow into the little lady that you are becoming. We love you so, until next month!

Love,
Mom and Dad

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

For Suri's first Christmas we have decided to stay in Sun Prairie, WI. It was a hard decision because we would love to be home with all of our family and friends but with her just 2 weeks out of surgery we feel as though traveling 5 hrs one way wouldn't be the best. So we wouldn't miss anything this year as a Christmas gift from my Aunt Karen we received a webcam so for those of you in the Skype world we are now up and running and our username is SuriBird. So here's wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Fashion Diva

Living in Wisconsin you don't go an hour without seeing women wearing tights and ugg boots so Suri wanted to make sure she fit in. Thanks Michelle Burk for the adorable boots!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Suri's first snow day, well not really a day but more like 10 minutes, and boy did she love catching the flakes in her mouth.

There is no place like home

So after 3 1/2 days in the hospital we were sent home yesterday afternoon around 11:30. Suri had to have 3 chest xrays on Thursday before they finally cleared her for discharge. Now all we have is a follow up on Dec. 22nd with one finally xray and if that is good we can put this all behind us. They were able to extract all the cysts from her lung and only had to take 10% of the lung with them. So she shouldn't have any issues breathing or anymore cases of bronchitis etc.. than any normal child. We truly were blessed that they caught this early and we were able to get them out before she would actually remember the surgery. This was definitely harder on mom and dad than I think her because if you watch the video below you can see that she is back to her normal playful self.

Chest tube is out!

It is 3:30 and we got the green light to take the chest tube out. Now we wait to get another chest xray to see if everything is good and then if so we will be released tomorrow. So keep the wishful thinking and prayers coming our way because we want to take our baby girl home.

Snowed in

So God has a funny way of working. Here we are in the hospital with our baby bird watching the snow come down and Madison shut down with no signs of the snow stopping. Already we have received 15-18 inches of snow and the schools, cabs and even the city buses are not operating. So there is no where else we need to be but here in the hospital getting her better.

The newest update at 10 am is that there is air in her right lung that shouldn't be there and it is compressing it. So the chest tube has to stay in and we have to still be hooked up to the wall unit that is drawing the air out. In an hour they are going to wet seal her tube for a few hours and see if air is still getting in. Run another chest xray and if there is less air than her 9am xray then out it comes if not, we are here until Friday.

Suri has been an excellent patient smiling at everyone, trying to roll over with tubes sticking out of her and is even eating solid foods again. She truly is a blessing and maybe this is God's way of slowing us down around the holidays to truly count our blessings.

moved to the peds floor

"ET phone home"

Yes Asif did get up in her crib with her

So today was better than yesterday and tomorrow will be even better. This morning Suri came out of her fog and started to return to normal. She was able to get her catheter out at around 10:30 then at 3:00 we were moved to the 5th floor which is a peds floor and out of ICU. Once here Dr. Lund took Suri off of the morphine and gave her heavy duty Ibprofin which is administered every 6 hrs. She is doing fabulous on this and was able to move around a lot better without any pain.

Suri also took her first foods since surgery: a whole step 2 of apple, banana, strawberry, 2 oz of rice cereal and 3 oz of formula. She was a hungry girl. She just went to sleep at around 8:30 and so are mom and dad. Here's wishing pleasant dreams to all of us. Thanks for all the continued support, love and for checking in. We love you all.

ET phone home

Suri received a fun light on her finger to monitor vitals and she thought she was phoning home like ET.

Recovery in the PICU

So after a 2 hr surgery we were finally moved to the PICU for the evening. Suri has a chest tube still in and it will remain in for 2 days and a catheter which will be removed in the morning. We hopefully will be moved from the PICU to a normal floor in the morning.

Here is a quote that has gotten me through the day from Arizona on Grey's Anatomy:

"This is general surgery on a miniature scale. These are tiny humans. These are children. They believe in magic. They play pretend. There is fairy dust in their IV bags. They hope, and they cross their fingers, and they make wishes, and that makes them more resilient than adults. They recover faster, survive more. They believe."

Thank you!

Thank you thank you for all your thoughts, prayers and well wishes. Suri is done with her surgery. They were able to do a lower wedge which means they only had to remove 10% of her entire lung (30% of the lower right lung). She has a chest tube in which will remain in for the next 2 days to make sure the lung seals itself and no fluid can get in. Don't worry Suri won't feel anything because she had an epidural and for those of us that have had one, they are glorious. Dr. Lund said that she won't even miss it. Keep posted for more updates! Love you all.

Here we go, let's get this over

Right before surgery.
Suri was very intrigued by the light on her foot and the remote. She only paged the nurse once. Suri was also extremely helpful with the blood pressure cuff and putting on her ID tag.