Setback-Wednesday Evening

I know the blog has not been kept up over the past couple of days. So I'll try to recap what's been going on.

Monday there was a stir in the air that Andie was going to come off the respirator. Her stats were doing well, her meds where down, her blood/oxygen SAT was in the high 90's and even in at 100% for most of the weekend and Monday daytime. Discussions were conversed between us and the medical staff about extubating her.

In fact Andie was getting very agitated and showing signs of discomfort with the tube in her mouth. Shortly after shift change we met with the Dr and he said we should remove it and see how she does. So around 6:00 PM the tubes came out of her mouth. Brooke had to leave the room and looked at her friends for support in the waiting room. I stayed in the room to watch the removal the breathing tube. I was amazed on just how fast the tube was removed. It didn't seem to bother Andie one bit that it was taken out. In fact she looked around once it was taken out.

After a minute or so I looked at the monitor - her stats showed great numbers. I was shocked to see just how high they went. They mentioned that she might breathe easier without the tube in her anyway. So once it was out, it did what I thought it would do. I thought her stats would go up and they did. At this point I'm thinking that things are good and maybe we've turned the corner.

Brooke was going to hold her that night but Andie was a little agitated (now keep in mind she's been off of breast milk for almost 24 hours at this point - so she has a right to be fussy) so she was swaddled up in a blanket and fell asleep. We were shocked because the last time Andie was swaddled was back at Thunderbird Hospital. Before we came here. But she liked it and was fast asleep.

Tuesday morning Brooke got to hold Andie for the first time in over 2 weeks. I could see the joy in her face looking down at Andie while they sat in the chair together. The deal was I was supposed to hold her first due to something Brooke lost to me. Probably on of our stupid bets or something. But I let her hold her in place of me. Jamie our nurse that morning did a great job keeping all of Andie's tubes and wires from not getting tangled or pulled out.

Tuesday afternoon something started to go wrong with Andie. Her stats were starting to come down. Especially her blood/oxygen SAT was looking bleak. But the funny (not really) thing was everything else about her looked good. Her skin color, her blood work - everything else looked great. But since her stats were coming down the doctors decided to put a CPAP on Andie to help with the breathing.

A CPAP is a device that hangs on your head like headgear you used to wear when you were a kid when wearing braces for your teeth. Has 2 tubes that go into the nostrils. It detects when you breath and basically injects a larger volume of air when she inhales. A burst of O2 per say.

After that CPAP was put on her I had to go home to take care of the boys. Brooke called me several times while I was out to give me Andie's stats. And they're all coming down.

In the evening they decided to intubate her one more time - so back on the respirator. Has the night rolled on so did her stats - going down. So back on the meds she was weened off of the past few days. So I went back to the hospital at almost midnight.

Today as the doctors and nurses got Andie stable again we had a discussion with the floor doctor and they decided that they'll perform a cardiac catheterization once she shows signs of stability - hopefully Friday or Monday. This will show if her heart is actually showing the correct pressures in each chamber, but more importantly. They can reduce specific medications and check the stability of her heart immediately after removing each medication, oxygen reduction and nitric reduction. Once they have this all completed they can come back and five us a full report and what we can do next in a sense of treatment for Andie.

Her stats are coming down again at this point and looks like it may be a long night. They have increased her Flolan again as well as her Fytenol. They are also giving her some more blood to help with the oygenation.

Please keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer for her. We need for her to get stronger and keep her stats high.

Duane