July 9, 2009

Thursday, July 9, 2009 8:23 AM, EDT

I spoke with the nurse at 2:30 this morning before I doing my middle of the night pumping. She said Geneva is a little fighter. Although that is a good thing, we need her heart rate to stay down. Poor precious thing is just so young and doesn't understand. My heart just aches for her.

She is being weaned off the ventilator to see how she does and whether or not it will come out today or tomorrow. She has a CPAP for 1 hr and then on the ventilator for 3 hrs. So far she's doing great with the CPAP and oxygen levels are good. I think they will now try half and half and see how that goes. I would rather we take things a smidge slower so we don't have to take out the breathing tube and then reinsert it. After her tube is out, we need to keep a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't get fluid around her lungs or develop pneumonia.

N

ormally when a person has a ventilator in, no noise comes out. They can still cry but no sound is heard. Well, I said normally. Geneva is above normal. :-) When she cries sometimes a little squeak will be emitted. Watching her little eyes and seeing her mouth open and trying to cry puts both of us in distress. Oh Lord, what I wouldn't do to take that pain away from her. Please show me how I can comfort her best. Please be with us all and comfort us as only You can.

I was confused about her lactates (and still am to some degree). We needed those to be lower, not higher. They are doing better and were 2.5 at 7pm last night and were down to 1.8 by early this morning.

Yesterday morning I noticed her belly looked distended and mentioned it to the nurse. The doctors made their rounds and said she was swollen and they would need to put in a PD drain if it continued. Her urine output needs to be higher on it's own. As of last night, she was processing about 4ml/hr and it would be great if that could climb to 6ml without a diuretic.

I'm doing fairly well but my legs, particularly my right, continue to swell. There is a concern for blood clots developing. I'm trying to balance a need to be moving around and a need to keep my feet elevated and off my feet.

Thank you for your continued prayers for us. I miss my other children and want our family to be all reunited soon.