Trouper

To say that Kate has been a trouper over the last week would be a phenomenal understatement. To make a long story short, while on our family vacation with Clint's family in South Carolina, we noticed that Kate had a diaper rash that was getting worse and worse. By the time we were flying home, it had gotten bad enough to make me call the nurse at her pedi's office, and on her advice we took Kate to the ER as soon as we got home "just in case". (It was a Sunday night, so the pedi's office was closed.)

Turns out this overreacting mama wasn't totally overreacting this time--Kate had a pretty serious staph infection that had turned into an abscess, and they recommended immediate surgery. So, first thing Monday morning, she braved "the knife" and had surgery at Texas Childrens'.

The picture above is from right before her surgery. As you can see, by this point she was pretty uncomfortable and not too happy a camper...

But, within an hour from waking up from the anesthesia, she was a whole new lady!! She didn't have any physical limitations put on her by the surgeon, and she took full advantage of that to run around as much as possible!

I think the sleepless night Sunday night and the surgery did finally hit her, though, and she took a nice nap--with her new giraffe from Grammie and Bucko! A HUGE thanks to them for everything they did for us during this ordeal (including both sleeping upright in hospital chairs Sunday night!!).

I remember being a candy striper in high school and thinking these metal cribs would be the most horrific thing to have to put your child in--not necessarily because they're not-so-stylish, but because that meant you had a pretty sick kid. This whole experience was extremely stressful as it was happening, but also made us so incredibly grateful that these metal cribs were something we were just experiencing for a few days because of an easily treatable condition. So so many of the families at Texas Childrens' are there in a much more serious situation than we were, and this certainly reminded us to be thankful for our many many blessings!

Kate enjoyed spending some serious time cruising the halls of the hospital with her grocery cart...

Daddy's visit on Tuesday brought a "resupply", including fresh clothes and some food from home (she was NOT a fan of hospital food). Needless to say, she was a happy girl with her full belly and in her clean clothes. It didn't take long at all for her to settle in and doze off in Daddy's lap...