Recovery & the last days in Chicago

The word "recovery" shouldn't even be used when it comes to Brooklyn & how she is after surgery...especially THIS surgery. She did so amazingly well that I only gave her Tylenol ONCE the night of surgery, & that was it. She didn't need any other than that. She was happy, running around, sleeping well (well...sleeping "well" for her), & being her normal Brooklyn self! I was absolutely amazed. :o)

We stayed pretty quiet the day after surgery, just relaxing & letting Brooklyn "recover" from her expander insertion. Dr. Bauer put 30 cc's in her head & we were told we could start expanding 10 days from surgery...which would be around the 18th of the month, which just so happens to be my first day back at work.

I felt bad that poor Cali had to stay in with us the whole time so her & I went & found a park for her to play in. Oh boy did she ever have a good time!! Here's some pics from that:

My family left on Tuesday afternoon to head back home, so it was just the 4 of us left. We had wanted to go to the top of the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) but we'd been putting it off & waiting especially for this trip since we knew it'd be nicer weather so we could see farther. We did the right thing!! We were told that the view is better from the John Handcock observatory, so that's where we went. It was simply amazing! Here's some pictures from that:

Our little bubble-girl, all ready to go

The John Handcock building & Water Tower Place (See below for a story about our lunch at WTP.)

Navy Pier

The City of Chicago!

Great view of Lake Shore Drive

Cali washing the windows :o)

My happy child! ;o)

We were told about this amazing food court at Water Tower Place. It sounded amazing so we thought we'd check it out. We found the Water Tower Place, which is right across the street from the John Handcock building, & it's like this huge 7 story shopping mall with nothing but high-end stores. Yeah, no Bath & Body Works there! Anyways, we found the food court & we had to be seated at a table by a hostess. She then told us how it "worked". There were rules to this food court! Each person is given a credit card & each person has to present that card when you leave, but it's up to you if you want to use just 1 card for everybody or use separate cards for each person, but you have to show EACH card when you leave or else you'll be charged. So there are about 13 different types of food...everything from burgers to asian, from comfort food to sushi...it was amazing! You order your food & pay with the card they gave you, then go back to your seat & eat it. The food was very good & for the most part the girls liked it. But then comes leaving. We thought maybe our lunch would be $20-$25 at the MOST. HA! Holy canoly it came to $43!!!!! Yes...FORTY-THREE DOLLARS! I couldn't believe it, to be honest. I went through that receipt with a fine-tooth comb when I got it, but it was right. So needless-to-say...about 75% of our daily food allowance was gone after just eating lunch!

So after the John Handcock building we got our favorite Pizzaria Uno that we got last time we were in Chicago, took it back to the hotel, & ate it with our new friends & next door neighbors, the Carraro's. Nadia & Roberto Carraro have 2 girls, Taelor & Jaeda, Taelor with the nevus. She had an extensive surgery just a few days before us.

The next day we went to the aquarium (gotta get use of that annual pass that we share with the Moller's) & then saw the Cloud Gate thing in Millenium Park. The Cloud Gate sculpture/statue/art THING was something made to get tourists to Chicago. Apparently it worked cause there's always tons of people around it. It's very famous; I bet you've seen it tons of times, just didn't know what it was. I still don't know what it is, but it's cool to look at non-the-less! Here are pictures of the aquarium & Cloud Gate:

Me & my diva

Looking at the fishys

Jellyfish in their new exhibit

Penguins

Cali playing in the kids touch area

And what would a trip to Chicago be without a trip to Harpo studios?! 

Cloud Gate

Cloud Gate looking up...it's really cool when you walk through it & look up!

Us next to Cloud Gate

My favorite Cloud Gate picture

We enjoyed this trip (as much as we could, LOL) especially more this time because my family was all able to come with us. It was nice being able to pass the time with my family sightseeing & doing stuff in Chicago that we haven't done before. Our last night we hung out with the Carraro's again (kind of a nightly thing we were doing there for a while)!!

Hanging out one last time with the Carraro's from Vancouver

 Brooklyn, Jaeda, Cali, Taelor

Nadia & me

Friday was travel back to MT day, but we had to be ok'd first before we were able to go. We went in & saw Mim bright & early Friday AM. Poor Brooklyn...she just didn't wanna be held.......

LOL, But I was bound & determined to get that picture of her & Mim!! I promised Mim I wouldn't put it on Facebook. (She said nothing about my blog though.....)  :o)

Oh...I forgot to mention about Brooklyn's drains! She had her regular drain after surgery that was draining quite well for about the first 12 hours. After that it was just draining a little. Then a day after surgery when she was up & at 'em she pulled her dressing off & had a hold of the drain...oops! She definitely didn't pull it out, but it was out a good 1/4" from where it was placed by Dr. Bauer. Once she did that, it just stopped draining. I left it though, for about 36 hours before I took it out, just to make sure it wasn't draining anymore. We kept her dressing on that day (Thursday), then gave her a good head-washing that night. So she was drain-free when we went in & saw Mim on Friday. I was so happy because that meant driving back home without dressings & drains!!!!