My hands have never been so clean. I wash my hands thoroughly and regularly, and use hand sanitizer many, many times in between washes.

There are wall mounted Purell hand sanitizer dispensers on the inside and outside of every patient room, and many other locations throughout the hospital. Signs encourage staff and visitors to “Gel in and gel out” of patient rooms, and we can feel the staff watching us closely to see that we do. Walk out in the hall at any given moment, and you can see a number of nurses rubbing their hands together as they “gel out” of patient rooms.

The ICU is guarded by a reception desk and double doors. After going through the doors, there is a scrub station right inside where we stop and wash thouroughly with surgical soap. After scrubbing, we walk about fifty feet to Sarah’s room and apply anti-bacterial get before walking in the room.

One morning after coffee, I had only been in Sarah’s room for about 15 minutes when I had to go pee. I gelled my hands on the way out of her room, walked to the bathroom, washed my hands when I was done, came back to the ICU, washed again at the scrub station inside the ICU, then gelled my hands again on the way into Sarah’s room. This is pretty typical.

If you ever wanted to lick my fingers, now is the time.

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Sarah is recovering rapidly. It’s is truly amazing to see how fast she is improving. Her surgery was Thursday afternoon, and she woke up on Saturday morning.

Midday on Saturday, they took out her endotracheal breathing tube and took the NIRS oxygen sensors off her forehead and back. Later that same day, they took out her mediastinal (heart) and pleural space (lung) chest tubes, her heart pacer wires, and her foley catheter.

On Sunday they took out her intra-jugular IV line, and her left radial arterial IV line. They also cut two of her five EKG wires, and removed her rectal temp. This left her almost completely disconnected from the mass of wires she had previously. We were allowed to hold her and even bottle feed her.

Last night, Sarah moved from the ICU back to the cardiac care floor where we started out last week. The nurses here are all glad to see her back again, and everyone is commenting on how pink and good she looks. This morning she is just cooing and smiling at both of us.

They tell us that if she continues to do well, Sarah could be discharged in just a couple of days. They don’t want her flying back to Fairbanks just yet, so we may be able to keep her here at the Ronald McDonald House for a few days, have one last check up, and fly home as soon as this weekend, or we could go back to Anchorage to see Dr. Brauner first and then on to Fairbanks. We simply can’t believe Sarah is doing so well and recovering so fast.