there is no pain involved here!! Just sleeping through an EKG :)

Ava had her surgery as planned and all went great!  The best part was they combined it with her bone marrow biopsy so she wouldn't have to go under anesthesia again this coming week.  Ava now has a whole new port, its sits under the skin and when its not accessed, she can bathe, swim, do anything. We have to have it accessed all the time right now because we need to hook her up every night to her nutrition.  If and when she starts to eat, they will take the outside line out (while the actual port is still surgically placed inside) so from the outside you cant see anything...this one is much more secure.
We spent the whole day in the hospital, I was really anxious because of Irene coming. The plan was for me to come home and be with Audrey while Drew and Ava stayed in Canton. We were both prepared for power outages and who knows what else.  I really thought I would be out of the hospital by 3:00, then have time to pick Audrey up from Julee (her home away from home...thank you Julee!!!!!!!). Drew left the hospital around 3 (thinking we would soon be out) to go to the store and then go to Canton apartment.  I was waiting for discharge, then planned on bringing Ava to Drew, then head home. When 4:00, then 5:00 came, I was stressing big time.  The doctors were checking Ava's breathing, running EKG's and the discharge part was taking forever!! I had a mini meltdown. I hadn't been home in 3 days, hadn't seen Audrey, and all I wanted to do was get out and go. I kept looking out the window and panicking about the storm, it really was a stressful day.  Finally, around 5:30 the nurse came in to let us go!! I brought Ava to Drew and set her up for the night, went to get Audrey and came home to no electricity!!!  The storm hadn't even started yet, it was just raining. I pulled into my driveway and could hear all my smoke alarms going off (this always happens when we lose power). My poor dogs...who knows how long they were trapped in there with 6 smoke alarms going off. I ran in, got a chair and took them all down. Audrey and I lit candles and planned on a long, dark stormy night. An hour later our power came back on, we still left all our candles lit, it was so peaceful. Its late now and the wind is getting crazy, I can't imagine our power staying on...we will see.

Audrey coloring by candlelight