Hey where is the popcorn

Movies are an amazing way to tell a story, one that I quite enjoy. They just seem to draw you in and before you know you are engrossed in the story. Their lives becomes your lives, their problems are your problems, and their emotions your emotions. When they have a great day, your day gets better, when they are in trouble you feel it too. You are so engrossed that you are almost upset when the story ends and the credits roll. You have become so engaged with your new friends that you want to see what the life is like "after the credits". Well that is what life is like for us. See we are HOME!!!!! We have been since Thursday night. Sorry for not posting sooner, see we have this thing about not posting pending discharge dates, we have had too many "maybe" discharges that we try not to get our hopes up. We actually don't believe we are getting discharged until we have been home for a day or two. They pulled both of our chest tubes, they just seemed to stop :-), on Wensday and discharged us on Thursday. We have come home with a few more medications, an open chest tube site that we have to pack, and two chest tube sites that are stitched close, whose stitches are going to be removed on Monday. We also came home with a very happy two year that is enjoying her newly repaired heart. A little girl whose oxygen saturations are now in the 90's, who no longer has blue eye lids, lips, fingers, and toes, and has very warm hands and feet. She is liking it very much and her surgery credits are rolling.
The question is "Where do we go from here?". It is such an amazing thing. We have spent the last two and a half years preparing for a surgery or heart cath. We have fought for every pound that she has gained, for every illness we have avoided and for every milestone we have hit. We have learned to be so "cautiously optomistic" we had a hard time accepting good news when it came our way. We have learned to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Well, now the best has had happened....we have gone from fifty-fifty odds and your daughter has an hour left (from the first surgery) to your daughter is going home and she is amazingly healthy. God has given us an amazing gift, its just one that, maybe, we can't quite believe is here. Its like waiting for a bomb to go off, that never did and now letting the adrenaline wear off. I think it will just take some getting used to. Trust I am not complaining. more expalining.
Now we aren't out of the woods completely. There is always a chance that we will need another surgery or even a heart transplant later on in life, but any problems in the short run would have happened already. So, now we have the joy of taking care of a two year old, to teach her that her life is a gift. To be responsible, compassionate and merciful. To teach her that while she has a congential heart deffect....she is NOT JUST a congenital heart deffect. Don't worry this isn't the end of our story ( I will continue to write updates), mearly just another chapter in the life of Kylie Marie Stowers.
Please be praying for all the children and the families of CHD. Some have just started this journey, some are in the middle, some have come out like us, and some have gone on to be in heaven. There are too many to write about...but God knows their names. God bless you all.

Now I have to go change a poopy diaper....oh how I love you MIRALAX