First miracle...

If you ask Shawnie, the first miracle happened when we stopped in at Shriners yesterday for our pre-op. Yesterday morning-before she even read your note, Uncle Rob, she batted her eyes at Keith and said "We need to stop at build-a-bear, I need a Selena Gomez build-a-bear for my surgery! Keith just laughed at her and said no. So after her x-ray, the tech brought in a very familiar looking box and said, "Are you too old for a teddy bear for your surgery?" and handed her a build-a-bear. It's not Selena Gomez, but it was close enough. You should have seen the look of satisfaction on her face when she showed it to Keith. My favorite miracle of the day, though, happened with the pre-op blood work. We ONLY draw blood at Primary's and we ALWAYS request the IV team because she is the Hardest Poke Ever and it ALWAYS is traumatic, usually taking even the IV team at least two tries. So we requested them and waited for them and when they went to poke, there was a big, beautiful fat vein that I think I could even have poked!! It slid right in, no fighting with rubber veins or squeezing to get enough blood out, in fact, they had to wrap it tight to even get it to stop when she was done! I almost felt dumb for making them come... Well, she has been in for just over an hour. She was so scared this morning but her strength and composure has amazed us. I dont think I'll share our conversation with the anesthesiologist, only that it didnt make us feel any more comfortable about the procedure, actually, i'm pretty sick right now. They are going to keep us updated all day though, and Dr. Santora brought Dr. D'Astous over to help him with it- between the two of them, she couldn't be in better hands for the procedure. Thanks so much again for all of your thoughts and prayers. It was so good for her all day yesterday to read the kind messages. She even asked to read more this morning while we were waiting. Some of them made us laugh until we couldn't breathe (Rob...) and some of them made me cry until I couldn't breathe. She is so blessed to have the incredible people in her life that you are.