Annabelle – Day 23

We’re having a pretty good day today.

My eldest two children started school, so I left the hospital at 7 this morning so I could make it home to take them to school. *sniff* I now have a 4th grader and a 1st grader! And this is Gabby’s last year at home… *sigh*

Annabelle’s status: Good.

The plan when I left this morning was to try and take her breathing tube out today, but to be honest, I was really praying for wisdom for the doctors because it felt like a little soon to me, even though it would have been wonderful! I got a call around noon confirming that they decided to hold off at least another day before taking the tube out. I am actually relieved, as I think that was the best decision. Hoping, though, that she continues to have a good day today and we can try tomorrow!

PRAISES:

Her blood pressure, which has been a CONSTANT struggle, has been good for the last two days! WOOHOO! She’s also peeing really good too, with very little help from medicine (she’d been on a few different diuretics because of fluid retention.) Her sedation seems to be right on, although she still sleeps quite a bit.

Prayer Requests:

Eating: She started to have some milky drainage through her chest tubes today. Evidently this means she might not be processing her food correctly (which they JUST started her back on yesterday!)

Bad thing is: if she continues not to tolerate them, they would put her on “special” formula that has an easy to digest protein (or something like that.) Considering I’ve stored up about 3 weeks worth of Mommy’s milk for her and planned to continue to do that for a while, this would be VERY frustrating, especially since said special formula is VERY VERY expensive! Please note, however, that my Annabelle is worth the cost and we will of course switch if she really needs it. It would just be… ugh. Yeah, that’s a good way to say it.

Good thing is: According the nurses, our surgeon doesn’t ascribe to the “switch immediately” theory and has the “wait-it-out-for-a-while-to-make-sure-it-doesn’t-get-worse” process, especially since she was tolerating and digesting just fine not long ago. I, as you can imagine, am applauding this decision for now. It gives us time to PRAY for her digestive system to handle her current milk just fine!

Breathing Tube: As I noted before, please pray for doctor’s wisdom on when to try again to remove her from the ventilator, and pray for Annabelle’s lungs to be STRONG and to handle coming off of it just fine!

Also, the last two days her eyes have looked darker and sunken in. They think they might have gotten TOO much fluid out of her. They don’t seemed alarmed, so I’m trying not to be, but she just doesn’t look as healthy to me. Her skin also seems paler than normal.

PICTURES:

(Yesterday) Annabelle swaddled like a little burrito (that’s what the nurses call her!) and peeping her eyes open.(Today) Annabelle sleeping… she has IV’s in both of her arms so she looks so sweet, yet so sad, with both of her “no-no”‘s. That’s what they call the white things they put over her arms so she won’t hurt her IV’s. She also got very mad at the guy who tried to do her echo-cardiogram today and started beating him with her no-no’s. HA!