We are currently still in the PCTU. Mallory continues to make great strides after surgery on Tuesday with just a few setbacks. She is off of all oxygen support and only taking pain medication as needed. On Friday she had some vomiting of old blood during the day that turned into new blood later into the evening. For precautions they stopped all of her feedings for 24 hours and monitored her all day yesterday. Happy to report that she has had no more vomiting, which they claim was probably due to a stress ulcer, and has now began feeding again by bottle. She has still had a little output from her chest tube so that still remains in place, hoping that can be removed sometime tomorrow. Yesterday we seen our first smiles since before surgery, which were much needed by us both. She is starting to act more like the little Mallory that we know. Even the doctors and nurses are getting some smiles. We greatly appreciate the support and help from family and friends. We look forward to coming home and seeing the girls and family.

Mallory continues to make progress after her surgery on Tuesday. She is no longer on any type of sedation medication but receiving pain medications regularly as needed. Her lungs are opened up and dry so that is no longer a concern. We are hoping to wean down from high flow oxygen to just a nasal cannula. They are beginning her on oral blood pressure medication and watching how her heart handles the increase. Her vitals seem to be within normal range. They would like to remove some lines and her chest tube tomorrow and be moved to the moderate care floor. Mallory is 20 weeks old today, amazing the changes she has made over such a short time. She has been opening her eyes and looking around but still no smiles, hoping they return soon.

Mallory is doing well. After what seemed like forever yesterday we finally got to go back and see her. After being home for 3 months it's hard to see her lying in a bed swollen, restless and unable to be comforted. We were told after the Hemi procedure a "Hemi" headache is common, so this is making her very restless. Yesterday evening her heart was out of rhythm so they had placed her on a pacemaker and were able to take her off of that today as the heart went back in rhythym on its own. They have begun what they call a sprint to see how she is doing breathing on her own in hopes of being extubated this afternoon. We're back to taking baby steps towards getting back to what we called our normal life. We're blessed to be in a great hospital with the best care with lots of love and support from family and friends.

Mallory is out of surgery. Dr. Bove said the surgery went well. He complimented on how happy and cute she is, said she was smiling up until she fell asleep. We are just waiting to go back and see her. Hoping for a speedy recovery and get back to our day to day routine. We are very blessed for supportive family and friends and for our little Mallory. Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers.

Michigan

Well we are back in Michigan and getting ready for Mallory's surgery tomorrow. Today we spent five hours in the hospital getting all of her pre surgery tests done. All of the tests came back great and said that she is all ready for tomorrow. She has to be there at 6:15AM with her surgery starting around 7:30AM. They said the surgery will be four to six hours. We can say that we are not looking forward to her surgery tomorrow, but feel good about the doctors doing the surgery and is why we travel up here for it. Now it will all be left up to our father above to watch over her and answer our prayers.

Second Surgery

Mallory has been scheduled for her second open heart surgery (Glenn) on May 22nd at the University of Michigan's Children's Hospital.  This surgery will be to take out the shunt that she has right now and do a little more plumbing to get blood flowing a little better.  Here is a link to what they will be doing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUPVkKvPGe4&feature=player_embedded.  We can say that we are glad she is going to this next step, but at the same time we feel it is going to be a lot harder with her being so much bigger and her starting to get her personality.

Mallory has still been doing great and is working on rolling over.  She gets to her side and then decides that she doesn't want to roll completely over.  We also have been doing a lot of reflecting over this past month and are still amazed at what all she has been through, how well she is doing and how blessed we are that she is in our lives.  Each day with her is precious and we try to not take it for granted.

3 Months

We know it has been a long time since we have posted on here or updated any new pictures, but Mallory is now 3 months old and could not be doing any better right now.  Almost 12lbs, talking all of the time, lifting her head up and can't smile enough.  We couldn't be more blessed on how she is doing.

On April 18th, 19th and 20th Mallory will be going to Cincinnati Children's Hospital to get her heart catheterization for her second surgery.  Once University of Michigan gets the results of this they should be scheduling her next surgery.  We have been talking a lot about this next surgery and think even though it is not as difficult as the first one, we feel it will be a lot more difficult for us.  We get to spend everyday with this baby that seems so perfect except for a scar on her chest and this next surgery reminds us how fragile she still is.  We know everything will turn out great with all of the prayers and thoughts that we get from all of our family and friends.  She is a blessed child and couldn't be more grateful to be in our lives.