After a Week...

Things seem a little more stable. Blair had a good night last night. She stayed at a peep of 16 and got her oxygen down to 40 percent. This morning, she only desaturated once and it was only down to the 70s. When the doctors did rounds this morning, they decided to move her peep down to 15. She's desaturated a little with that, but she's still in the 80s. Hopefully she'll respond well to this and we can say goodbye to a peep of 16 forever. We've still got a long way to go until we reach the 5 she's supposed to have though.

She's doing well with the three sedation drugs and they've added a paralytic. Hopefully her lungs can rest and begin to heal. We've been here since last Wednesday and we're missing our active little girl.

Thank you all for your love and support. We've really appreciated all of you. Thanks to the great people at JDC for keeping things running smoothly. Spence would be a mess if he had to go to work while Blair was here.

Yesterday, the nurse was using a couple of stuffed animals she's received to prop her arms up. The bear is from the tax team at JD Clark and the pink pig is from Taylor (my cousin) & Katie and their cute kids. Thanks for thinking of her. She'll be thrilled when she wakes up.
Blair loves balloons so I decided to take a picture of the ones she's received since I think they won't last until she wakes up. The one above came from our friends David and Lisa Safeer with a cute teddy bear. The princes one below came with the bear from the tax team at JD Clark.

If I can remember, I'm going to grab a real camera when I go home today. These pictures from my phone are terrible.

This afternoon my Dad is going to bring us Davis and Spence and I are going to take him to lunch and hang out for a while and my dad will sit with Blair. After lunch, I'm going to take Davis home and play and hang out and keep him overnight. I'm sure missing my little guy. Normally I'm tired of reading to him after about 20 books but I think I'll read him every one of the bookcase today. I'm excited to have time to hang out with him.

A Few More Steps Backward

Blair had a pretty good night last night. The nurse gave her a bath and put Valentine's Day bows in her hair. She'd be happy about that if she wasn't totally sedated. She stayed at a peep of 12, but her oxygen was reduced to 40 percent and she was getting good saturation.

This morning has been a total different story. She started desaturating again and wouldn't come up. The doctors and the respiratory therapist came to check her out and decided to move her to a peep of 16. They also had to have her on 100 percent oxygen for about an hour. Three hours later, the oxygen is at 80 percent, so she's doing a little better. They had started muscle relaxers to help her lungs stop working so hard and hopefully they can work on healing.

They are going to get rid of her current IVs and put in a PICC line instead. This is an IV type thing that has a catheter running from her elbow up her arm and into her chest to the large vein that goes into her heart. IVs have a life span of just a few days (they've already had to move them once) and the PICC line is put in place for long term patients. It will deliver all of her meds now. They are also going to put in an arterial line. This will monitor her blood pressure on a continuous basis instead of using the cuff that just takes blood pressure once per hour. It will also allow them to draw blood easier for all of the tests that need to be run. These two things are being done because she's getting so much worse and the doctors think she'll still be here for a pretty long time.

The respirator she's on can only go to a peep of 20 and they usually don't like to let it go that high. If they can't get her under control with this respirator, they'll switch her out to a different kind.

Just Right

Davis is having a blast with grandparents, but he's worried about his sister. He knows she's at the hospital and she's "very very very sick". Don't worry though, he's "just right sick".

I personally wouldn't call RSV and a little pnuemonia "just right".

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.

This Morning's Update

All of last night and this morning, Blair has been super restless. Her sedation wasn't working well and she'd be sleeping and resting when all of the sudden she'd try to sit up and move like crazy. Spence says it was like Frankenstein and all of the sudden "She's Alive". Spence stayed up most of the night helping the nurse hold her arms down so she didn't rip of the ventilator tube and trying to keep her from moving her head around too much. This morning they have changed her sedation to a different kind of drug and increased the amount she's getting. She had to have a number of boluses (an extra amount of the sedation drug when she's extra wiggly) and they weren't really helping until the last five or ten minutes. In addition to the arm restraints, they've put things on her arms that make it so she can't bend her elbows so she can't reach her tube.

When the respiratory therapist came around this morning, we looked at her X-rays for the last few days and it looks like her right lung is significantly worse now then when she came in. It is, however, a little tiny bit better than it was yesterday. She also has a little fluid in the top of her right lung that isn't supposed to be there. It's not too much to worry about yet though.

Two days ago, they decided to reduce her "Peep" (the amount of air that needs to stay in her lungs to keep them inflated after the ventilator breathes for her). This morning, the RT thinks that she needs to go back up on her Peep again. They will decide this for sure when the doctor comes around a little later. The peep (and a few other things) has to be down significantly from the 8 she's on and the 9 they're moving her to before she's ready to be on her own.

Right now, they've got her on her left side trying to help out the right lung. She's finally holding still a little better and we'll update further when something else changes.

A Crazy Few Days

Blair and Davis had a cough on Sunday morning so Spence stayed home from church with them. When I got home from teaching primary, they were both asleep and Blair had a fever. Monday Blair didn't get any better and was pretty sleepy and breathing really fast. That night, Spence took her to Insta-Care and they said she probably had the flu and she'd be fine. They also listened to her lungs and said she sounded fine. She didn't get better and she hadn't eaten anything since Sunday morning so we decided to take her in Wednesday. My pediatrician wasn't in so I took her back to Insta-Care. Upon arrival they checked her oxygen saturation levels (they were 74 and they're supposed to be in the high 90s) and immediately got her on oxygen. She was also having 95 respiration's per minute and she's supposed to be somewhere around 15-20 per minute.

They called the ambulance to take her the two blocks to the hospital and we got super worried. When we got to Davis hospital, she was getting better on her oxygen saturation levels, but her little body was working way too hard to breathe. After our pediatrician and the ER doc talked they thought they should send her to Primary Children's Hospital in case she got worse. They have better children's equipment and doctors so we were happy about that.

When they were preparing to get her in the ambulance to take her to Salt Lake, the doctor at Primary's wanted one more test before she came. When they got the test results back, they decided to send her on Life Flight with a pediatric crew in case she needed to be put on a respirator in transport.

When we arrived at Primary Children's we expected her to be in a regular room, and were shocked when they showed us to the Pediatric ICU. When we first saw her they were taking X-rays and she already had a respirator in place. It was pretty scary seeing her like that for the first time.

We got here on Wednesday night and we'll likely be here for many days to come. Blair is stable and letting her body heal while the respirator breathes for her. Spence and I sit and worry and watch our pretty baby girl. Spence is becoming a total pro a all things respiratory. He has asked a million questions and gotten everything figured out and he can explain what everything means in great detail. We're lucky to have great people at Spence's office that can keep everything rolling for him while he's here with his girlie.

Davis has been with Grandpa Davis since this all happened and he's having a ball. Last night he was breathing really fast and his fever wouldn't go down so my dad brought him to the ER at Primary's. They found out that Davis had two ear infections and they said he for sure had RSV because he's been hanging out with Blair. When they listened to his lungs they thought he sounded okay but they did a chest X-ray and found out he had pneumonia too. They offered to keep him if we were worried, but they thought he could safely go home on medication. This morning, my parents took him to our pediatrician and he said he's looking okay and we could just watch for changes for the worse.

Grandma and Grandpa Erickson have picked him up this afternoon and they'll have him until Tuesday night when he'll go back to Grandma and Grandpa Davis. Because I'm a paranoid mom now, I told all grandparents to bring him to the ER at Primary's at the first sign of something getting worse, but he should be fine.

We appreciate all three sets of grandparents for their help, love, and concern and all of our friends and neighbors for their offers to help. Right now we're in the middle of a super long waiting game.

The pictures below are pretty poor quality- I took them all on my Blackberry.

Blair in the ambulance from Insta Care to Davis Hospital
ICU at Primary Children's Hospital- Our little girl who was potty trained before she was two would die if she knew she was wearing a diaper... She would, however, be please to know I had done her hair and painted her nails. She loves being fancy- the hospital is no exception.

Davis at his ER checkup at Primary Children's Hospital

Davis hanging out watching Scooby on Grandpa Davis' iPad

Sick Kids

For those of you who don't know, our little Blair is in the ICU at Primary Children's Hospital with RSV and Pneumonia. She's on a respirator and stable now, but we're in for a long wait as her body heals. Davis has the same things, but he's not near as bad and he's home with Grandpa Davis and some medicine. Thanks to all of our friends and family for your concern. We really appreciate it.

Nativity Mastered

My kids have been having so much fun with Christmas activities this year. They were thrilled when the decorations went up and they've been loving every moment since. They are always telling us that Christmas is Jesus' birthday and reminding us of the story of His birth.

The other day, Davis called to Blair, "Hey kid."
To which Blair replied, "Don't call me 'kid'."
Davis said, "Okay Princess." (A good choice because that's usually how she likes him to refer to her.)
But Blair corrected him by saying, "Call me Mary. I'm Mary now."

A few minutes later she told me her baby was no longer a girl. The baby was a boy and his name was Jesus. When she started taking off the baby's clothes, she told me, "Jesus doesn't wear clothes. He's just naked under the blankets wrapped around him."

At my parents later that day, she still insisted that we all call her Mary and her baby Jesus. She only likes to read the Christmas books about Jesus and she prefers to listen to the Christmas music about Jesus. Anytime she's going anywhere, she pretends she's on a donkey headed to Bethlehem.

I think we've got the story mastered.

Once there was a snowman...

Last Sunday it really snowed for the first time. After church, the kids raced home to get on their snow clothes and go outside with Dad to make a snowman. Dad said he would help them for a minute and they could make a small snowman. They promptly told him that the snowman must be "tall, tall, tall". When it was complete, Blair asked Spence to make it melt "small, small, small". When he told her it wouldn't happen right away and they would need to wait, she said, "Should we wait outside or inside?" I think she was a little disappointed when it didn't melt as she watched it out the window. Dad is pretty good at building a snowman, but he really needs to work on his melting skills.

More Halloween

Here are more pictures of our Halloween fun. Grandma and Grandpa Davis came over to see the kids and have dinner on Halloween. They handed out candy while we went trick-or-treating for fifteen minutes. The kids were over it pretty soon due to the rain. They got way more excited to see the kids that came to our house and hand out the candy than they did about getting their own candy. We had a great night.

The kids had a great time at their little Joy School Halloween party. They had a little program when the kids were supposed to sing, but most of the kids just stood there looking at the parents. They all enjoyed the treats after though and as soon as we left they sang the Halloween songs at the top of their lungs. Go figure.

Every year, they have a party at JD Clark and the kids love it. This year, Spence did a little better on his costume than normal (he threw it together two days before instead of the morning of) and the kids thought he looked pretty cool. It turns out having a big head comes in handy if your husband needs a cowboy hat.

Cute Kids

I know I take tons of pictures of my kids standing here, but I like to have pictures of them when I have just gotten them ready. And they're looking so cute. And I love this picture of Blair, she is always pulling this face lately.

Girlie Girl

Blair is such a girlie girl. She loves fancy dresses and her nursery teachers say she is always concerned about her dress in class. She doesn't want to do play dough with the other kids becuase she doesn't want to mess up her dress and she doesn't want to play with some of the toys because she has to be careful with her dress and take care of her babies. What a funny little girl. These are two new dresses from Grandma Davis. When she wore the blue one, Blair came home thrilled to tell me that Sister Crawford loved her dress and sparkly tights and shoes. The second dress was a quick favorite because of the matching baby doll dress. It was also a requirement that her baby have a matching bow before she went to church (where the baby sat in the car). It is so much fun to watch my kids grow.

Discovery Gateway

With the start of winter, we've been thinking of fun new things to do inside. Last week we went to Discovery Gateway. The kids had a blast and we didn't even make it upstairs. They spent hours checking out all the fun things, but they absolutely loved the grocery store. The took turns shopping and being the cashier over and over again. We'll be back there again soon.

Discovery Gateway

The kids and I went to Discovery Gateway with Jen and Boston Devlin today. The kids all had a blast. There are so many fun things there that we never even made it to the second level. Davis and Blair especially loved the grocery store. They loved taking turns being "the lady" and "the guy"- the checker at the store, while the other kid shopped. I love watching my kids have so much fun. We bought discount passes online, so we still have four more. It'll be fun to see them discover the things upstairs.

3 Year Olds and a Puppy

I thought it was time to update pictures since the kids turned three. Blair loves posing these days, so she was pretty good and loved hearing how cute she was. Davis, on the other hand, was a nightmare. I don't know what the issue was, but he didn't want to have his picture taken and he cried so hard that his face was blotchy and red. I didn't have many to choose from with him and it was hard to narrow down the pictures of Blair.

When we got back from taking pictures, I thought we'd take some with the puppy. Those three make quite a difficult group, but we ended up with a few cute ones.