Steps forward (made in bunny slippers, of course)

Cora seemed today as if she was making small strides in the right direction with this bug. She was definitely feeling better than yesterday but she still had some throwing up and didn't yet seem her happy self.

The surgery is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, but it will be contingent upon her kicking the recent infection and on all her lab work coming back clean. She is still finishing a course of antibiotics which I hope will help make that possible.

Today the electrophysiologist showed me the pacemaker device they are planning to use. Because she's so small, even the smallest one is going to be very large on her (like a third the size of her abdomen.) It seems strange to think of a mini computer being implanted in her tummy, connected to what are basically mini jumper cables, fixed to her heart. I'll just toss that in my backpack of strange and very alien concepts that are my reality. I've built a nice collection.

One of my amazing college friends spent the day with me today, doting on sweet Cora and keeping me entertained. Back in those days when we used to yap for hours on our porch, I certainly never would have dreamed we would one day be yapping at my child's bedside in a hospital. That's life, I guess.

We are continuing to feel so loved at UCSF. Each day we've been there, some combination of doctors and nurses have stopped by to see Cora and to welcome us back. I can truly feel how loved she is, and it comforts me beyond measure. I even got to see the nurse I wrote about in one of my entries that always told Cora (in a very thick southern accent) that she was, "such a fine baby girl." I got to tell her that those rich and loving words rang through my mind and carried me through many dark moments when I doubted Cora or my ability to bear things.

We have received enough love through all of this to feel embarrassed about.

I'm not sure what this experience will mean in the long term, what the purpose will be (if any) or what the lessons will look like when they're all told, but I know that Cora has touched people and she has changed some of them a little bit. She has changed me, that's for sure. Things I once feared I can now approach bravely. I can see kids facing challenges -- other kids in the hospitals we've lived in -- and more than what apparatuses they're attached to, or what disabilities they display, or what sad story they may be living, I can see them. Their big smiles or their loud cries or what their faces look like. And I can most of the time see everything that's right with Cora, more than everything that's wrong. She has led me through a magic door and into a new side of me.