Baby Steps

Sydney continues to look wonderful and to take baby steps in the right direction. Today was another good day. We were a little distressed this morning after the bleeding incident and then the news about the chest tubes, but Heather got us motivated to do some serious work/play with Syd this afternoon. We got her sitting up at a 90 degree angle for almost an hour! Excellent job Sydney. At first she was pretty angry with us, but soon enough she was playing with play doh and stickers. What a trooper. I got her to smile with bubbles and she even managed to blow a few just for Michael! While we played with stickers, she started singing the alphabet and later she sang along with Youtube to some of her favorite songs!

There were some rough moments today for Sydney. She still has lots of fluid in her chest. Her tubes got a little backed up, but when we sat her up, she managed to put out over 75ccs in one hour. She must have felt so much better because her sats climbed to 94!! In fact, there was so much that it seeped out of her incision and collected in her diaper. Crazy. Because she drained so much better while sitting up, we decided to try and keep her at a bit of an angle until the fluid had dried up for a bit. Right now she's sleeping on an incline in stead of laying flat.

Syd doesn't like having the tubes "stripped" or squeezed to suck out the fluid. Since the tubes have been clotting up, the nurses have to strip the tubes once an hour and it's hard to see her get upset. We were relieved that her output was about half of what it was yesterday, so definitely progress in the right direction! Because of the issues with her chest tube, her arterial line, and then briefly with her central line, we were worried that Syd might be clotting. The first set of labs clotted before they could even be sent to the lab, but the second set looked better than they had earlier. She will however resume her usual aspirin regimen tomorrow. Although we did mover her around more today than yesterday, we didn't get her out of bed. The medical team doesn't really want to jostle her too much until her central line and pacer wires have been removed; Christy is hoping that might be tomorrow!

Sydney also got to eat today (and drink her beloved milk). She started off with popsicles, then milk, then applesauce and a hamburger bun. Eating seems a little difficult still because apparently most things taste bad when she first puts them in her mouth. It's definitely a little disheartening, but if we're persistent, she complies. After sitting up for that whole hour, her nurse approved a "therapeutic lollipop" which Sydney was more than willing to eat!

She was much more alert today and managed to keep a fairly regular schedule. Tonight she put herself to sleep without any medical assistance! She was worn out. Grandmommy is at the hospital with her tonight, so we're hoping it's a quiet one. We're also praying that she can continue to hold her sats steady in the 80s on a lower level of oxygen. She bumped around on different levels of Os today but evened out tonight between 1.5 and 2 liters.

Tomorrow we're hoping to get her up again, using her lungs and draining off all that extra fluid. Please continue to pray for less fluid in her chest, for higher sats on lower oxygen and for a generally smooth recovery. Thanks for all the prayers, they are definitely working.

Lots of love,
Josie (for Christy & Steve)