Monday, February 7, 2011

Today's Update

This journey has had a lot of ups and downs. Last night they had gotten her sedation to a perfect level by adding one more drug and increasing the other two. She slept pretty well and they never ended up increasing her Peep from an 8 to a 9. She was getting about 40-45 percent oxygen pumped into her and she was doing well.

This morning, her oxygen saturation levels began decreasing and they couldn't get it under control. They just increased the oxygen percentage for a while and watched her. They ordered another chest x-ray and couldn't tell why she wasn't responding to the increased oxygen. Four doctors came over and checked her and they did what they call a "bag and suction" where they use a bag to pump oxygen into her and see if they can suction more out of her lungs that way. They got some good secretions out, but she still had a low oxygen saturation level. They decided to increase her peep to 10 and then they all watched her for a while. They couldn't get her oxygen saturation level to a good spot without having her at 90-100 percent oxygen pumped into her, so they increased her peep to a 12 which is higher than it was when we first came.

They were going to do the bag and suction every four hours, but they have decided not to because she's on such a high peep and her lungs will deflate too much if they do.

It was a stressful day, but she's getting closer to a good place with her saturation levels and she's at about 75-85 percent oxygen. My Dad came up for a few hours this afternoon and we had a good visit even though her bad days really make him nervous. Davis happily played with Aunt Miranda today while Grandma Erickson worked for a little while and he's enjoying being the king of the house there.

Blair this morning- She opened her eyes this morning for a while and watched cartoons before she began to go nuts on us.
The child life people had us fill out a paper about her today and they made her this cute poster.
This picture was taken just a few minutes ago. Two nights ago we gave her a bath and washed her hair. It looked pretty cute, but she promptly began moving like crazy and going down on her oxygen levels so now she's looking a little crazy. We don't care as long as she works on getting better though.

2 comments:

Allie and Fam said...

Thanks for keeping us updated on here. Again, please let us know if there is anything we can help with. Our prayers are still with you all!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for a fun day visiting with you guys. Tell Blair to calm down. She scares Grandpa when she acts up. It was so fun to see with her eyes open and watching things around here.

Mom and I love you guys. Hang in there!