>From the mouth of Rhyan:

Midnight after surgery "I cannot be up this late or I'll be SNOTTY!"

Noon the following day "Those nurses kept waking me up and now I'm nasty."

Boy, that girl knows herself! I would love to say that she's the graceful little patient, but it just isn't so. Other than the giant-sized attitude and some pain, things couldn't have gone better.

It seemed that she knew what was going on beforehand. She quietly watched TV and didn't want to play. I don't think she said more than a few words until it was time to be wheeled away into surgery. We gave her hugs and she didn't even look back. Just like her first surgery, peace was with us all throughout. She went in around 3:00 and we were updated at about 4:00 that things were progressing well. About 40 minutes later, Dr. Orobello came in and said everything went perfectly. We hadn't spoken to Dr. Orobello since her first surgery, so I was able to tell him a little bit about her progress in school and tried to express that he was used in the most significant way to change the course of her life. But, how do you tell someone that in just a few minutes.

Right before Dr. Orobello came in, we prayed that there wouldn't be any staples and that Matt would be able to stay the night in the room with us. Last time one of the most difficult things was having the staples removed (13 in all, we think). And staying alone with Rhyan in the hospital room was so very lonely. When Dr. Orobello told us that he was able to use derma-bond and there was nothing needing to be removed, I knew that prayers can be answered almost instantaneously. Sometimes I feel like if I don't pray about something for days or weeks, the prayer won't be answered. That most definitely turned out to be wrong! Not only will she not have to go through the fear and pain of having staples removed, we don't have to go for our follow up appointment until her implant is turned on, meaning that we were just saved 5 hours in the car and a full day off from work for Matt. He continues to answers our prayers beyond our expectations.

We were able to go back to recovery with her and it came back to me so vividly how it felt to see her with her first implant time. Shocking. This time was definitely better. She wasn't so tiny or so swollen, but it still took my breath away. She had been dry heaving coming out of the anesthesia, so we were kept in recovery for quite a while. Once she was taken to her room, I was overjoyed to find that we had a private room. Matt was going to be able to stay.

Throughout the night was a typical stay in the hospital. Awakened every couple hours for stats and meds. She was able to sleep through a couple interruptions and she was given only two rounds of morphine before being switched to Tylenol with codeine. With her last surgery, I believe I only slept for either 1/2 hour or one hour. Either way, it was so difficult. This time we were able to sleep once for a two hour stretch and once for a three hour stretch. It was more than I expected.

On our way home, she slept nearly the entire way. Even as I'm writing this I have to continue to remind myself that the hard part is over. It's only good stuff from now on. She awoke at midnight last night completely lucid after her negative reaction yesterday to the Tylenol with codeine and she didn't need pain medication until this morning. We gave her Tylenol without codeine this time. We can't figure out why codeine would have affected her last night but not after surgery and we don't have an explanation other than we had the generic version. Codeine will not be used again, though, no matter the answer. Right at this moment I'm listening to Rhyan and Evynn playing with their dolls together and my heart is full.

The novel of Rhyan's life will be one of faith, love, hope, adventure, trials overcome and the Truth told. May 29th was the beginning of the next beautiful chapter in her life. Thank you so much for being a part of penning that most blessed page.

In His love,Courtney