Katie's Been Discharged!!!!!

It's been a long, exciting day, with no time to update the blog.

This morning Katie and Paula were both allowed to take showers, much to their delight.

Katie had a good night, so this morning they decided to discharge her! Getting back to the hotel from the hospital was no small feat (though it's only two blocks away)-- Katie (riding in a chair), myself, a 2nd wheelchair full of stuff. Thankfully, a very kind nurse helped us to the door, and our lovely hotel had a wheelchair for Katie to ride in once we arrived. Of course Katie can walk all around on her own (or they wouldn't have let her out), but discharging took a lot out of her (not to mention, the hospital is huge). After spending a bit of time resting in the room, Katie and I headed back to the hospital to hang out with Paula, which is where we're at now.

To minimize the amount of baggage we needed to haul back to the hotel (and because we plan to spend time with Paula while we're here), Katie and I moved all of her lovely flowers and her balloon into Paula's hospital room.

Paula has had a relatively good day overall, though the morning started off rough with a bit of a scare when she started hyperventilating. No need to worry though, the nurses and doctors here took great care of her and think it was probably an anxiety attack (she'd just been talking about how worried she had been that something bad might happen to Katie during the operation when the hyperventilation occurred). Just to be safe, they are doing many tests as part of a cardiac workup, and so far everything is fine. The only real change is that they are having her lay low for a bit and put her back on the oxygen, but with luck, she'll be back out of bed by morning. Paula's major joy is that the water retention in her legs is gone (for the first time in the time the nearly six years that I have known her, and from what I hear, a very long time) -- see the picture above!

At the moment, Katie and I are awaiting the delivery of our pizza from The Glass Nickel, which was recommended to us by the lovely nursing staff here at the University of Wisconsin Hospital.