Kids visit USC Hospital for first time

Late this afternoon we got the OK to let the kids visit Denise! We had to put the kids in gowns & gloves (Denise wore the mask), but they got to see mommy for the first time in about a month & a half. I brought home the garb a few days ago so that Gracie could get used to suiting up. As it turned out, Jacob was the first to see Denise tonight. As with every visit, he was a little apprehensive, but did well considering that he's only 18 months old. He recognizes Denise when I play the videos of her in the hospital on TV, but he took a long time to warm up in the hospital setting. It wasn't until the end of the visit that he started blowing kisses. Gracie just snuggled right up, no problem. She still wants to be a nurse, or maybe a doctor.

Since there are no longer all the monitors that were hooked up in the ICU, it's harder to know what all the stats are. She looks stronger, voice is sounding more & more normal, and she's not feeling "out of it" as much.
The current concerns that I'm aware of are:
- vomiting: it's hard for her to hold much down. My understanding is that she is still eliminating, at least.
- vision: she's due for another eye exam in the coming days, and her vision's still blurry, even with glasses.
- ab swelling: possibly due to lack of protein. She needs to wait to have fluid drawn off until blood thinner meds are lowered or discontinued. In the mean time, the swelling is putting lots of pressure on her innards, possibly adding to the vomiting issues.
- heart rate still fast
- regular hospital room care: Being out of ICU is a two-edged sword. She's not bad enough to be in ICU. Great. But on the floor, each nurse has to take care of more patients. So Denise gets to feeling pretty rotton during the waits at time.

Yesterday she told me that while she was in ICU and feeling really loopy, she thought that my hair looked just like meatloaf. She's been going without food for WAY too long. She also told me again to not put up all the cards. She was worried that other patients would think she was being obnoxious. She joked, "Look at all the cards I have up! Look at how important I am!" Darn tootin'! Still, I'm abiding by her rules and keeping the walls modest (in this case, modest means NOT covered up). I only have photographs of her & the family up so that the caregivers can see what Denise looks like when healthy.
Also yesterday we did an art project wherein Gracie colored some circular sheets of paper. Later on we'll send them to a company that puts the designs onto plastic plates. Last night Gracie really wanted to go to the Saturday night service instead of waiting until Sunday morning. So we went, dropped off Jacob in the nursery, but Gracie was feeling clingy and wanted to stay with me for "big church." When they took up the offering, she got all excited about getting to pass the plate by herself. Today she wanted to make another design to be turned into a plate. This time she did a big red circle in the middle with yellow all around the edges and told me she was "trying to make a money plate like from big church."

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