Tuesday, July 5th - Day 16 update

I'd like to give a BIG THANK YOU to Guy today for providing almost live BLOG updates throughout the day!!

Tori was awake again when we arrived this morning and she went into her surgery at 10:00am or so as Guy mentioned. Maria and I went outside to make some phone calls and when we returned ALL of the lights were out inside the hospital. As we wound our way through the pitch black halls we finally bumped into a hospital worker who assured me that there was emergency power provided in the surgical rooms... The lights came on after about 5-10 minutes and shortly after that our surgeon came out and explained that they were only able to get the G tube completed. The Trach would need to now come later which meant more anesthesia for Tori...

From what I understand, the power outage started with the main provider Utah Power going down and each of the 4 backup stations also failed!! Unbelievable isn't it?!?! The emergency generators then kicked in and they are unable to power the entire hospital including some of the equipment in the surgical rooms. One of the doctors in the PICU mentioned that a open heart surgery was going on during the outage and the only light on was the one attached to the top of the surgeon's head... Very crazy to say the least...

Tori went back in for her Trach at about 7:00pm and as we all wished her well before the surgery she broke out in tears again and had that very grimacing and saddened face. It is soooooo tough to witness and both Aunt Laurie and Sophie were emotionally moved and in tears again themselves. Again, I know in my heart she DOES at least hear us!! Tori was then back in her room after the Trach surgery around 8:30pm. We all could finally see our Sweet Baby's mouth again!! She was still under heavy anesthesia at the time so we can hardly wait until tomorrow morning when she is awake. Hopefully tomorrows update will include a description of a totally unblocked smile. We shall wait and see.

Thank you all so much again for your prayers and support and it is great to see that some of you are sharing your own personal experiences with Tori on the site. I have learned so many new things and have found out so much more about Tori's overall goodness by reading all of the journal entries, BLOGS, Comments, etc. Please keep posting!!

The Schmanski Family