Post Op Day 4 – getting better

There are no words to say how much better Emily is doing today compared with just two days ago. Everyone said that day 4 would be a huge turning point (even her surgeon) but I really didn’t believe it – it seemed impossible, but kids are really resilient so…

This morning started out with Emily waking up before all of us. I found her downstairs by herself (she’s back in her own bed) and singing while playing with Barbies. When she saw me she said, “I don’t have any pain this morning, mommy! I feel like myself!” She hasn’t had Tylenol since 7:30 a.m. yesterday.

She’s a lot less swollen too – though still quite puffy. But she gave me permission to take pictures AND post them to the blog. So – here’s the first post op photo.

Yes, that’s a smile! As you can see, her cheeks are very bruised and I think that’s from whatever instrument they used to keep her mouth open during the surgery. I know she’s still quite swollen, but this is like a thousand times better than Tuesday.

Back to her old silly self. As you can see from this shot, her lip is quite swollen too, but she’s got a lot more mobility than she did even yesterday (it was difficult to understand her when she was at her most swollen on Tuesday). Here’s another silly shot. I would’ve preferred to edit myself out of these pictures, but Emily insisted that if I posted her, I had to post myself too.

And, here’s a surprise for you – Emily let me record her singing a song! She didn’t want me to record her face though – so she had her hand “lip sync” while she sang.

You can hear how her voice is muffled a bit – that’s from the swelling. As I type this, Emily is dancing around the living room (without any hopping or too much hip shaking, at my insistence). This is a child who had hip surgery four days ago! Hooray!!