Mallory has returned home from a short stay at Akron Children's Hospital. Her doctors thought she would benefit from heart catheterization to explore around her heart and a balloon angioplasty. She was a trooper. The day started off at about 7:30 when Mallory got up. She had 1/2 cup of apple juice and that was all she was allowed. She didn't complain about not getting her morning milk or being hungry. When we arrived and checked in, she mentioned she was HUN-GY once, but we distracted her and she forgot. We went to the scary part of the hospital where all the people come and talk to you. After the physician's assistant, anesthesiologist, and nurse met with us we had a child life specialist talk to Mallory. I figured it would just be geared towards us and wouldn't do her any good, but it was great. The lady showed Mal all the funny stuff the doctors and nurses would wear. She let her play with the mask she would put on to fall asleep. Mal even got to rub flavored lip gloss on the inside of her mask so it would smell good. Then they did a practice walk away from mom and dad. They held hands and walked out of the room and pretended to go off to the cath lab. Mallory didn't cry at all which was very surprising. Before this practice walk, a nurse gave Mallory a stuffed bear. Mallory named the bear Lunch Box, so the nice lady and Mallory got Lunch Box (and Luke) a funny hat to wear during the procedure on their practice walk. When it was time for Mallory to go, I had envisioned a screaming, crying goodbye, but she left happily with the nurse. The procedure was supposed to take one and a half to two hours, but she was done in just about an hour. After we met with the doctor we went to recovery to see her where multiple nurses were gathered around her trying to keep her under control. For the 45 minutes Mallory was in recovery, she gave them (and me who was holding her) a bit of a frenzy. She had to lay flat and keep her leg still. YEAH right. She got to the point that the nurse had to call another anesthesiologist to give her something to calm down. When he arrived, Mallory was laying perfectly still in my arms. Not more than a minute after he left, she started flailing about again. That's my girl! We did make it out of recovery alright and into a room. Mallory was still feisty, but would calm down eventually. She drank some liquids and then got sick. As we were catching her vomit in a tub, I remembered the nurse said, just hit the red button for help and if it's an emergency, just yank the whole cord out of the wall. Well, I consider throwing up an emergency, so I yanked the cord from the wall. It's amazing how quickly people came and how many!! I felt horrible! Just a slight overreaction, but that's okay. After getting sick, Mallory felt 100 times better. She didn't look miserable and started to talk a little bit. She watched multiple Christmas movies and cartoons. For dinner she ate/devoured an entire bologna and cheese sandwich! We realized it had been just about 24 hours since she last ate. The doctors told us she would sleep most of the afternoon, but she didn't fall asleep until after 8. On Tuesday morning, she got to take a ride in a wagon to go to the heart center. There she had an echo cardiogram/ultrasound of her heart. She screamed and fussed the entire time and kept saying..."I want to be done!" A few hours after that we were released and went home, but not before stopping in the lobby to get a strawberry smoothie, a tradition when we visit Akron Children's Hospital.
Mallory and Dad waiting before her procedure with her new medical kit and friend, Lunch Box.
Mom, Mal, and Lunch Box waiting patiently.
After the cath. The blue thingy on her leg was to keep it straight. Mal wasn't so happy in this picture. She is covered with an awesome blanket that was given to her. It was handmade by Project Linus. It is really beautiful and was so nice. She hates to be covered up, but she didn't mind being covered with this blanket. 
Her first meal! She loved it. 
Such happy faces after we were told we could go home. :) 
