No Changes

Just thought I would put a picture of our dogs on Elli's blog considering they are soon to be "big brother and sister" to Elli. Molly is our black lab and Trigger is our yellow lab.

Oh yah we, or at least I miss Gabby our cat too!

Elli had her eyes open for a little while yesterday afternoon. Brian enjoying some Father-Daughter bonding time. It is so reassuring to see her eyes open, but so hard at the same time.

Her little black belly button is just about ready to fall off.

Elli spent almost 20 minutes yesterday just looking around and up at us, without being fussy. She is just so adorable, we did sneak a few kisses when nobody was looking.

Elli continued to have a fairly stable day. Her satruations have not dropped below 80% all day, even with cares and diaper changes. Her blood gases have stayed almost identical, so on that note, as long as the 1 o'clock gas looks the same, that will be almost 24 hours of acceptable gases...Way to go Elli! Talking to the doctor this evening, we know that Elli is still very sick, and this is still a very serious situation. It might be a "honeymoon" period for the new drugs, or it might be the rest that she needs to move onto the next step. Dr. A said that with the gases that Elli has been having, normally she would try and wean the vent settings, but with all that she went through last night, she is going to let Elli rest up and my guess is when Dr. K gets back tomorrow he will be making some changes, but hopefully they are small and slow. Today's chest x-ray looked a little better than last night. It still appears that Elli may have some atelectisis (collapsed lung tissue) in her right upper lobe, but the doctors still can't determine if it is that or a shadow from the hematoma from the ECMO cannulas. Her left chest cavity appears to have some air in it. It could be air around the left lung bud, or possibly the left lung bud was over inflated and essentially "popped". Either way, it appeared last night that all the extra air on the left side was squishing the heart and right lung. But now today it appears that the chest tube is keeping he air to a minimum and the heart is a more effective pump as evidenced by her better blood pressures and decreased pulse rate.

Since things are looking about as stable as they can be without actually being stable, I think that we are going to call it a night much earlier than the last several. It wont be too early considering that it is already after midnight now. Brian did get to watch part of the Bearcat game this evening, but it started at 6 and with shift change he missed part of it because the Internet at RMH is not near as fast as at CMH. Wanted to put Elli's NWMSU booties on, but she doesn't really have any hands or feet without anything on them (arterial line, midline IV accesses, and the saturation monitor) so maybe the next game she will get to show her Bearcat pride. Brian is sitting by Elli right now and she must like it because her saturations are 88%, that is about the highest they have been all day. Heck they just hit 89%, she must know that her daddy is sitting next to her sending his love. Guess that's about all I know for tonight. Just trying to take it one day at a time and enjoy the time with Elli each day, especially when she wakes up just enough for us to get a glimpse of her beautiful blue eyes, it seems to make the long day so worth it. Keeping the faith in KC. On a side note, Brian and I are so home sick, just letting everyone know that we are thinking about our family and friends and know that we miss you all very much and cant wait until Elli is stable for everyone to come down and meet her. I cant believe I am saying it but I think that I miss Burlington Junction. Looking forward to a restful night for all three of us. As always thanks for the continued support. Brian, Cassi and Elli