It's Thursday now and we are home.

After my last post on Tuesday night, we had the nurse from hell. Evie had been getting tylenol with codeine by suppository, but I guess this nurse didn't want to deal with that, so she tried to give the liquid form to Evie by the syringe. It tastes nasty, and has alcohol in it so it stings, so Evie fought and cried. The nurse ended up holding her roughly by her swollen and tender little face and forcing her to take the medicine. Evie was screaming, I was almost crying, Richard was furious. I get angrier and angrier the more I think about it. We didn't see that nurse again after that, and it's probably a good thing. She might have taken an assisted leap out of our 3rd floor window! Nurse Shelly, you told us you were filling in because they were short-staffed. I really hope that your normal job isn't in pediatrics. Evie now screams whenever she sees the syringe, and is even more scared of anyone wearing scrubs.

There was only one little couch in Evie's room, so on Tuesday night Richard and I had to sleep in shifts. Evie also figured out that she could slip out of the nonos if she didn't have a shirt on underneath, so one of us had to watch her so she didn't. She really is missing her thumb - she would (and does) pop it out into prime thumbsucking position, then gets really frustrated! Needless to say, we were both exhausted by Wednesday morning. I don't think either of us got more than 2 hours of sleep in a row, and 4 or 5 hours total. yawn. I'm still tired!

When Dr. P came by Wednesday morning, he thought he would have to keep us overnight again. Evie was moaning and just wanted to be held. She wouldn't take anything to drink by syringe, and I was so worried. Luckily, I got permission to feed Evie with the side of a spoon. I spent most of Wednesday feeding Evie juice, tea, broth, jello, and mushed up melty popsicles. Of course, once she would see the popsicles, she wouldn't eat anything else! We must have watched our doodlebops dvd a thousand times! (really only 3 or 4, but enough was enough!) By Wednesday night, she was in much better spirits. She danced along to the doodlebops, and even jumped on the bed! We got the nurses in to see her, and they let us get her out of bed to walk in the halls. Of course, to Evie walk means RUN! It is hard to keep up with a toddler while dragging along an IV pole! They had fun wooden toys mounted on the walls, with magnets and mirrors, and balls in tracks, and a steering wheel. Dr. Paul stopped by while we were walking around and decided that she was ok to come home!

Now at home she won't take the syringe or a spoon, so we've been letting her drink out of a Nuby sippy cup with the spout cut off. She also decided that she would drink out of a bottle of water. I'm glad that I remembered how much she liked drinking the bottled water while we were in China, and decided to give it a try here. She can't drink with a baby bottle, straw, or regular sippy cup, or do anything that would hurt the roof of her mouth. (that's what the nonos, or arm splints are for!) I saw it when she yawned while I was rocking her - the roof of her mouth now looks "normal", with just a row of stitches up the middle.

She is feeling better today. She hates to take the medicine, and the eardrops sting, but she is much happier at home. She even did her little happy dance when we got here, and had to run around and hug everyone! She is playing with her balloon that Em got her at the hospital, and the ones that Grandma and Grandpa Hurst and Uncle Jim and Aunt Terri sent. I got video, I hope it will look ok!