The darkest hour of night is just before dawn.....

No matter how many pictures we looked at with the awesome childlife staff could prepare us for how our child would look. All the preparation in the world still did not prevent me from stopping dead in my tracks as we stepped into Cullan's room in the ICU. As my breath was taken away at the sight of my sweet innocent little boy, Steven took my hand and gave me the nudge I needed to keep moving. That first night proved to be the hardest and longest of the entire ordeal. The ventilator helped make Cullan's breathing easier. He had a lot of fluid build up due to surgery, and had a very strong rattle sound. At that moment we became very aware of all the risks due to surgery that were explained to us beforehand. They were truly a reality now. There were tubes for fluids and plasma. There were wires to monitor his heart on his chest. Wires on his feet. Drain tubes in his little head, to drain blood from the incision. An overwhelming sight....No one ever said Cullan was in danger, but his nurse for the evening did not leave our room the entire night. And as she left that morning, she said to the nurse who took her place, "We made Cullan better!" We know "God" made Cullan better. But, how much we appreciated faithful nurses whose skilled care helped our son.