Increases and Decreases - Jan 22

Baby Girl is still on the mask today. Was hoping it would get taken off last night - all of her blood gas tests (measure oxygen and carbon dioxide levels and some other things) have had good results - but Dr. G is out today and the doctor covering for her didn't want to make that call.

There are several increases and decreases though:

Decreases:

- They have lowered the level of oxygen she's receiving to the lowest setting so she's more or less breathing room air.

- They took her off of the constant morphine drip. They'll still give her pain meds if she looks uncomfortable, but not a constant drip anymore.

- Sedation is more or less completely gone. She's tolerating the mask a lot better than the tube so the last dose they gave her was last night.

- Snuggle time with Mommy. They were having trouble with one of her arterial IV lines today and were trying to keep her as still as possible so no holding today :( I *think* once the mask is gone the arterial line will follow shortly because it's the one they're using to take blood for the blood gas tests, so once they have enough tests with her off the mask they shouldn't need to draw blood anymore.

Increases:

- Food! They've got her on a constant feed, but they're going to slowly increase it so that she's getting 8mL an hour by the end if today (which she can technically get out of a bottle so maybe by the time we get that going again we'll be right on track with feed amounts). As they increase the feeding they will decrease the IV fluids so hopefully we can get rid of at least one of the needles in the next 2-3 days.

- They've also increased the amount of time she's spending on her side to get her off of her back some.

- Her "outputs" have increased back to normal levels... Never thought changing diapers would be such a happy occasion but each one is a success :)

One thing that has been truly touching is the number of nurses and doctors who have come by in the last two days to check on her, see how she's doing, cheer that she got the tube out and remark about how good she looks. The surgeon has been by everyday since last Monday to check on the incision site but also to ask how she's doing, how I'm doing, if I need anything, have any questions, etc. It's truly been a team effort and we've got a community of support within the hospital walls of people cheering for Baby Girl as well.

Today she's sporting bunny slippers. We had a diaper incident that effected the pretty pink ones =/

Also, since I haven't posted too many shots of her face covered up by tubes and masks and wires, here's one I got yesterday when the Respiratory Therapist was adjusting her mask...she wasn't too happy :) She's already trying to use her vocal chords, although they're a little hoarse from the ventilator it's still a great sound to hear after a week!