Kate's swollen little hand
Kate has the chest tube blues.
Poor baby. She isn't on morphine, so her chest tubes are really hurting. She won't move and she won't let me hold her. If we move her even slightly, she moans or whimpers. Changing her diaper is like torture because we have to move her so much. I feel soooo bad for her. The new chest tube is on her right side, a few inches below her armpit, so now she cannot lay on her side. That was the side she liked,(of course). I am aching to hold her, but when I ask she shakes her head slightly, so I don't dare. Several nurses have told me that adult patients with chest tubes have told them that the pain is worse than a broken bone!! Kate has the pain equivalent of three broken bones in her chest, so no wonder she doesn't want to move. She is also still constipated. Can I ask you to pray for poo? :)
Medically, she is doing better. The big news of the day....drum roll please... We have heard these descriptions of her chest tube fluid output.
"Significantly decreased"
"Slowed down dramatically"
"Wow...really slowing down"
HOORAY!!! God is answering prayer because she was dumping so much fluid a few days ago that they were giving her a bag of fluid an hour. She would dump it as fast as it went into her. This morning, they weren't even replacing fluid anymore! AMAZING!
"I'm not at all happy about this 'cut my morphine' thing"
The plan is to move her tomorrow out of PICU. If all goes well, she will either move to the step-down unit, or to the regular floor. I know this is a good thing, but I am hesitant to move beyond the safety of the PICU. I also don't want to give up our wonderful private room with a window! :) We will most likely be in a double room when we get to the regular floor. There are a few private rooms, but not many.
She is getting one of her three chest tubes out in the morning. It's the one that pulls fluid out from around her heart. It hasn't drained anything much for the past two days, so it's coming out! Yay! The two chest tubes in her lungs are staying. She has spent most of her awake time glaring at all of us. Poor baby. She still isn't eating, but I did get her to drink some apple juice. She tried one bite of banana and gagged on it.
If looks could kill...
Please pray for baby Mason's family. They had a rough day today. He is doing well, but today was not a good day emotionally for Mommy and Daddy. They have a website set up, with a few pictures but haven't had time to put much on it. It will enable you see his precious little face, though. www.masonslater.com . Please leave a comment for his mommy and daddy and tell them I sent you (so they don't worry about where all you crazy people are coming from!). Thank you for letting God use you to bless this precious family.
