Since Gracelyn has been home...

Tuesday, 2 days after leaving the hospital, headed to the pediatrician's office!

Gracelyn has been home 11 days now. It's hard to say just how well she is doing because the last week and a half has been quite a roller-coaster. She has days where we can see progress and then a few in a row where we don't see any. We don't get discouraged because we know it will come, it just takes time and prayers!

ready for her first day of PT!

She is still weak in many areas. When it comes to nursing, she can only nurse 3 times a day, and once we got home she decided that she wouldn't take a bottle from me so I feed her 3.5oz using a medicine syringe unless Ryan is home to give her a bottle. We are battling constipation issues since the GI muscles were the first to be paralyzed due to the botulism toxin invading the intestines. We have had to increase the daily dose of Miralax and resort to suppositories to help her.

1 week since being home, headed to church!!
I was very nervous to take her but anxious to go and see our AMAZING church family!

She goes to physical therapy once a week and seems to enjoy it, until Derrick makes her lay on her tummy and "exercise" her cry, since it also is still really weak. She has gained strength in her legs and some days she can lift her arms really well and then others even her pacifier is too heavy for her to lift to her mouth. She cannot lift her head on her own yet and her eyes follow but aren't as quick yet as they used to be. We do PT at home 4 times a day.

She doesn't sleep much and there are still moments in the day where she is inconsolable, which has been a struggle since the beginning of this battle. I call her sassy! Despite the difficulties she experiences though, Gracie hasn't lost her big smiles and little coos!! She is a happy girl a lot of the time!

Blaine, who wasn't a fan of hers before, decided tonight that she needed a lot of toys.
I guess her absence while she was in the hospital made his heart grow fonder.

I cannot thank those who continue to pray for Gracelyn enough. God will continue to take care of her. I know it. He has already done so much in her healing. Our church family has been so incredibly supportive with meals and child care offers and hugs and notes and smiles, it all, every bit of it, helps us. My heart really does feel so full. God bless you all!

I plan to start a separate blog to keep track of Gracelyn's progress very soon. I am a member of a botulism support group and we share our stories and updates with each other and I think it will make it easy to follow. I will have a link on the side of this blog that will take the readers to it. Thanks again for just reading and thinking of Gracie.