Sasha Balboa

Hi!

First of all, we want to thank everyone for all of their thoughts, prayers and support before/during/after Sasha's surgery.

Sasha is doing fantastic; she is smiling and happy...and shouting orders in Russian.

For those who don't know, the operation lasted from 7:30 am Friday until about 12:30pm...a long 5 hours for us, to say the least. We were able to see Sasha in the recovery room at about 1pm, and she looked better than we expected. Her face and head had not yet started to swell at this point. Her incision is a wavy line that goes from ear to ear (like a headband), and it is held together by stitches that will dissolve (we have pictures if you'd like to see the incision, let me know).

Because of all of the lines, IVs, monitors, drains, and such that she had connected to her, we weren't able to hold her right away. She spent the first full day in the Pediatric ICU (PICU), where she had one-on-one nurse care. She slept a lot, and ate very little early on. I spent the night with her, while Michael went home to spend time with Sophia. At about 2am Saturday morning (18 hrs post-op), I woke up to Sasha sitting up in her crib saying "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba". It was the best sound ever....she sounded so happy.

Saturday, the swelling in Sasha's head and face worsened. Her left eye was completely closed, and her head and forehead were very puffy. Late Saturday afternoon, both eyes were completely swollen shut. It didn't seem to bother Sasha too much. I think she decided that since she couldn't open her eyes, she'd just sleep. She slept from noon Saturday until about 8pm that night. She proceeded to wake up, drink a bottle....throw up the entire bottle (on me), and then go back to sleep until about 2am again. At 2, she wanted to eat, talk and play. I was able to get her back to bed at 5 until 6:30. It was a long night for me, but the relief of her being ok is overshadowing the exhaustion.

Sasha is now only on oral Tylenol and Motrin for pain relief. As of late this morning, she can see out of a teeny tiny opening in her left eye(see picture above - taken this morning in the cafeteria). Being able to see helps her mood tremendously. She also saw Sophia for the first time today, and she changed from extremely fussy to happy and blowing raspberries. It is amazing what a strong bond these two have already...and it choked me up to see how quickly Sophia was able to make Sasha giggle.

Sasha is at 48 hours post-op right now, and we think that her swelling has peaked. Daddy is at the hospital with her, and I'm home with Sophia spending some much-needed time with her and time away from the hospital. We think Sasha will be discharged tomorrow. The doctors would like to see both eyes open, and they want to be sure she can tolerate her pain with over the counter medicine. So far so good.

We again want to thank everyone for their thoughts. Thanks also to Grandma Cathie and Papa Jim for coming down and taking such great care of Sophia. She had a blast.

On another note, Michael, the girls and I want to wish Madelaine a speedy recovery. Hugs and get well kisses are coming your way. We can't wait to see you all this weekend.

Love you all.