No More Heel Pokes

Sunday, November 23, evening

So, Faith's blood gases have still been borderline, although Ayanna, our night nurse, said the last one was much better. However, because they have to take them so frequently, they are constantly poking her little heels, which she obviously doesn't like much. So, the neonatologist decided that they should put in a new arterial line so that they don't have to poke her anymore to get blood. They put it in her left foot.Unfortunately, that means that Dave doesn't get to hold her tonight... they want to be sure that it's going to stay put and they can get some good gases from it; but hopefully after she rests tonight, he can hold her for awhile before he leaves for work in the morning. Otherwise, we'll just hope and pray that all of these extra tubes are out by Thursday, and she can be held pretty much the whole day.

Other than that, she is doing really well, recovering much faster when she gets upset, and resting more comfortably. Her OG tube (the one that goes in her mouth down to her stomach to suck the bile out) is actually not suctioning anymore, it is working just by gravity now, and when they do suction it, very little is coming out, which combined with the fact that she's having more and more bowel sounds, is a really good sign that things are starting to work the way they're supposed to.

I heard today that some of you are worrying about her lungs, so I wanted to reiterate that her lungs are healthy, there is nothing wrong with them. She has been slow to wean off the ventilator mainly just because she is holding on to extra fluid, which is perfectly normal considering she just had major surgery 4 days ago, and really can't change positions or anything beyond going from side to back to other side, to let the fluids drain off. But please don't worry about her lungs, they are perfectly healthy, it's just because of the stress of having surgery and the fluid retention that she is having to work extra hard to breathe, and still needing help from the ventilator.

I was talking to my mom earlier, and I said I think that it is because she has had a few really good days, so when she has a day that is pretty much just normal, it seems more like a bad day, even though it's to be expected considering the situation. So even though I might be more pessimistic sometimes when I post about her progress, she really is doing wonderfully, and her rate of progress is perfectly normal.

I am glad that people are enjoying reading this, I am definitely enjoying writing it, and it really helps me to process and deal with things as they are happening. I think it will be cool too, for Faith to read this someday and be able to really understand what she's been through.