Look at all the souls shakin' LIFE......

Going into the second surgery following transplant was obviously stressful but it was the best decision made.  The procedure proved to be beneficial and we, along with Dr. Wachs, feel comfortable knowing that it was taken care of immediately. She spent the entire day and evening resting and healing with no major issues. 
Today, Dr. Wachs removed her feeding tube, one of her JP drains and an arterial IV. She still has a JP drain on the left side as well as her broviac and catheter. Many of her medications will now be given to her by mouth, which she seems to really enjoy (for the time being).  The hard part now (for me) is maintaining her pain since her pain meds will start to be weaned from her IV and given orally. She has been a little fussier than normal for most of today so I assume pain is what she is fussing about. 
She has been allowed to breast feed and has tolerated her feeding very well, of course.
We are hopeful that tomorrow we will be discharged out of the PICU and heading upstairs.  We have been moved to a different room in the PICU that does not require a single nurse to tend to us so that means her "needs" have become less and monitoring is not as critical. Great signs we are moving forward.
Earlier today, I was able to meet two families that have gone through the transplant process and share a bit of our stories with each other..
Lela, a beautiful little girl, is celebrating her 3~year anniversary of liver transplant later this month and is doing very well.  She was also born with biliary atresia and was transplanted at 7 months old. 
Evora, a beautiful, blessed 10 month old, just had her transplant last week, days before Mercy.  She had a different, very rare liver disease other than biliary atresia. Due to complications with the donor liver, it did not "accept" so Evora had to endure a second transplant.  My heart hurt for this family when they shared this. What they and many others don't know is that we were called that Tuesday to potentially receive that organ and were prepared to be on "back-up". Both Mercy and Evora share the same blood type. After what we have been through, I probably would have suffered an emotional breakdown if that would have happened to us after all we have been through. Thankfully, that was not part of our journey, very unfortunately it was part of theirs.  Sharing that with the family was not important. What was important, was that they got a second chance to make it right and Evora is doing great so far.  For this, they called Dr. Wachs a HERO (he was their surgeon also)....I smiled, and agreed wholeheartedly. Definitely another Superhero on our list :)
Thank you, Mikey ;)