Mission accomplished

It's been a long, yet good 48 hours.

After working the holiday to write four football stories for our weekly high school football preview section, I obviously took Tuesday off for Abby's surgery to reconnect her intestines.

Her procedure was scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. As those of you familiar with hospitals might guess, that didn't happen. Not even close.

We arrived before 7:30 a.m., just in time to catch Abby being wheeled into an elevator to go down to the surgery waiting area. After more than 30 minutes there, we were told there were some emergency cases that would have to go first, so we were sent back up to her room.

We eventually found out she was rescheduled for 11 a.m., so we all took a nap until then. But 11 came and went with no word from surgery. As the noon hour approached, Katrina, Abby and I were all getting hungry and cranky. (Abby hadn't been fed since midnight in preparation for the operation.)

After a tedious amount of waiting and lack of communication, Abby was wheeled into the OR around 2:45 p.m. Katrina and I were strangely serene about the situation, as this was a "happy" surgery and Abby had already came through so many more difficult things. We even worked on thank-you cards while we waited.

We received word the operation had gone quite well a few hours later, and we got to see her in her new room around 6:30 p.m. She was still quite out of it, but looking good. She still is on a ventilator, but that likely will only be for a few days, at most. She also was moved back to the NICU for more seriously ill babies (J4), but that is standard procedure after this operation and she likely will get to go back to C4 before too long.

Today was a huge step in the right direction for Abby. It likely will be around a week before her intestinal tract begins to function normally and we can get back on the road to getting her growing and getting her home.

We thank you all for your prayers and support today and every day over the last three months.