My sister-in-law signs all of her messages to us, "PFK", which stands for Praying For Kate. Her daughter made this cute sign and brought it to us tonight!
Kate had a very good day today! What a turn-around in the past 24 hours! She has been smiling, playing, and even laughing out loud. I know that last night, there were many churches praying for her during their Wed. prayer services. I do not think it is coincidence that today she has taken a dramatic turn for the better.
She has stayed off oxygen all day except for this afternoon when she dipped into the 70's. They made her put the oxygen back in her nose and she was ticked! She threw a hissy fit and got her oxygen saturation back up all by itself. haha She had to keep the oxygen in her nose for a little while and then they let me take it out. The more she moves around, the better her saturation level is.
"Look, Mom, no tubes!"
"Peek-a-boo, I'm not in ICU!"
She isn't drinking/eating as much as they had hoped. Her diaper was dry almost all afternoon and evening and the nurse told me that if she doesn't start urinating, she will have to get the NG tube back in her nose. Noooooo..... I have been trying to coax her to drink, but I'm not going to force it down her throat. If she's not ready, she's not ready. (I just felt her diaper and it feels WET!!! Woohoo!!)
They will do an x-ray tomorrow AM to see how her chest looks. If it's clear of fluid, they will not put a new chest tube in. I really think they will not need to. Her other tube has put out 40cc's today with only 4 more hours of collection to go! So....if she doesn't go over 45cc's (it doesn't look like she will), she should be able to get the tube out tomorrow!!! Yes, tomorrow...not seven weeks!!
She got a very special package today from a little friend, Hannalee, who also had heart surgery here! She is quite a famous little girl and everyone remembers her. She was here for 3 1/2 months after her surgery because of complications. Thank you, Hannalee and family, for all the fun toys. Kate has had a wonderful time playing with them today.
One of our PICU nurses came over this afternoon to see her and couldn't believe the change. I said something about her putting out 100cc's an hour last week and she said, "You mean 100cc's PER chest tube--as in 300cc's per hour. I couldn't keep up. She was leaking it out faster than I could put it in." I then remembered that the doctor had told the nurses to just 'chase her the best you can.' They couldn't get it in as fast as she was getting rid of it.
That was when they told us we would be here for 7-10 weeks. And then you prayed. And prayed. And God performed a miracle. Her fluid output dropped dramatically in one day. It has gone down steadily ever since.
I'm not sure if I explained exactly what happened this morning. She had a chest x-ray. Her nurse then came in and told me that she normally never looks at x-ray's but she 'happened' to look at Kate's and noticed that her chest tube had started to come out. The chest tube has air holes in it and they were exposed and sucking air into her chest cavity. If that had gone unnoticed, she would have developed another pocket of air in her chest and they would have had no choice but to put in a new chest tube. I believe that God prompted the nurse to look at the x-ray so they could get it out and bandage the hole before air could collect.
She has thrush (yeast infection in her mouth). WAH. I noticed it when she was in PICU and asked the nurse if it was thrush. She said there was no way it could develop that fast. Hmm...well, it did and her tongue looks awful. I think that might be one reason that she is not eating and drinking as much as she should. They are putting nystatin on her tongue but they said it would take a few days to improve.
Well..enough of the medical report. Here are some pictures of her today that show her amazing improvement. God moves when we pray!! Thank you for praying for her because it has made a tremendous difference.
"It's MY turn to play doctor."
"I'm making some phone calls to see if someone can spring me out of this joint."
"Look out, world!"
"Like mother, like daughter! Paparazzi girl."
"Daddy's back from Chicago but Mommy REALLY needs to do something about my hair. It's embarrassing."
