Starting Feeds

Maddison is having a good day. She has managed to stay of the ventilator and is doing well. She still has some labored breathing from time-to-time but overall she’s holding her own. They have put her on c-pap which is kinda like a high powered jet of air to help pop open her lungs. They are hoping if she gets maximum use of her lungs she’ll take deeper breaths and not have to work so hard.

We were just told moments ago that they are going to start feeds this evening. They are going to start with some pedilite to see how she handles that. Then tomorrow consider mixing some formula in. Her chest tube is FINALLY slowing down. They told us if it continues to drain slowly they will most likely take that out tomorrow! Then I can finally but some clothes on her!

She has had a wonderful nurse today, one of my favorites, TJ who has been taking very good care of her. She even made her bed all pretty and did her hair! That photo is attached. Little by little she is getting stronger. She hasn’t said any words to us yet but she will just stare us down making sure we aren’t going anywhere!

Hopefully I’ll have good news to report on feeding tomorrow!!
Ashley

Maddi is off the vent!

The vent is OUT!! WHOO… They just took Maddi off the ventilator. So far she is doing well. She is breathing kinda fast but otherwise her stats are good. We have our fingers crossed that she will do well. She still has one of the chest tubes still in. Unfortunately it is still draining quite a bit.

They are letting her rest for the rest of the evening. She is on a nasal cannula at 100% oxygen but they are talking about coming down on that tomorrow so long as she has a good night. She got really worn out just by taking the tube out so she is resting now.

Not a long update but a very exciting update! We are moving in the right direction! Hopefully if she wakes up a little more I might get to hold her in the next day or so!

Ashley

Going Steady

Maddison had a quite night last night. Unfortunately when I came in this morning, the nurse said her x-ray didn’t look great. They said it was very hazy on the right side. The doctor came in this morning with an echo machine to see if it was fluid or something else. It ended up being that the lower right lobe of her lung is collapsed. This is the area we always have issues with when she is on the vent.

They went up on a setting on the ventilator that maximizes the pressure going into her lungs in the hopes of getting it to pop back open. They’ve also weaned her down on some of the sedation meds to see if she wakes up a bit she might be able to take bigger breaths. She has started to stir around a bit more, especially when she is getting a diaper change so hopefully that will help.

Her chest tube is still putting out a lot of fluid so they’ve decided to keep that in until it slows down some. So far it seems like it’s going to be another quite day. They said they’d see how her lung looked tomorrow to see if we could go back down on the pressure settings in order to get her off the ventilator.

Keep ya posted.
Ashley