Day 34

They were able to do Hailey's first trach change this evening. The surgeons always come do the first one. We got our first look at the stoma (hole) in Hailey's throat. It of course made us a little sad, but it really does look good and like it is healing well. Tomorrow they will have us do our first trach change. Each of us will have to change it once this week so that we can get used to doing it before we go home.

Today we learned about infant CPR and emergency procedures in our trach class. I'm so grateful for all those years of girls camp because the CPR was really just a review of things I am familiar with.

The girls went home this morning. They have a short week of school this week and they will get to come back early this week, which is really exciting!! I miss them tons when they are gone.

We let the girls Skype with Hailey today and it was adorable to see Hailey's reaction. She was smiling, kicking her legs, moving her arms, anything she could move to show how excited she was. Since she can't use her voice she was clicking her tongue at them. It was adorable.

We still very much appreciate your prayers for us. The trach is kind of overwhelming, so we are definitely needing those extra prayers so we will be able to be sufficiently trained to take Hailey home. I'm still praying that she can get home without a cuffed trach so that we could do a speaking valve and let her have her voice a bit.