Cora- Day 8 Update

After being on the high flow of oxygen yesterday, they tried weaning her from all oxygen around midnight last night and it worked! She was able to sleep throughout the night without dropping her sats too low, and nursed many times as well (sleeping and eating without dropping were the two criteria she had to meet), and we were discharged late this morning! The final 'diagnosis' is just that her lungs stopped functioning at full capacity once she became sick, and so she wasn't able to breathe deep enough for good oxygenation which contributed to the low sats. Her sats are still much lower than normal, but they were high enough to get us discharged, so we are thrilled. Hopefully she'll continue to quickly improve every day. It is so nice to be home as a family of four! Thanks for all of the prayers!

Cora - Day 7 Updates

Well, day 7 brought a little progress, I think? The morning started off with her sats being low, even on oxygen (hovering right around 90), so I didn't have much hope for the day. Because they were lower, they hadn't tried to wean her off the oxygen all throughout the night and early in the morning.
However, once she really woke up and started being attentive and looking around, her sats rose a lot so they ended up turning off her oxygen around 10:40AM to give it another try.

Typically, she starts to fall pretty quickly (often within 30 seconds), sometimes lasts about 5 minutes, and on two occasions has lasted 20-30 minutes before they needed to turn it back on.

Well, today, she started off really strong and held her own in the mid-90s which was a change. Even more surprising was that she made it an hour and remained there! She then got hungry, and I was a bit scared to nurse her since I knew that her sats would probably fall a bit. (The 2 criteria she has to meet before going home are being able to feed and take a long nap without de-sating and keep her O2 above 88, which is still low, but is the minimum that she needs to be to be released). Well, she surprised me and stayed strong the entire time I nursed her (around 93-96). I started getting pretty excited at that point.

Around the 2.5 hour mark, she was still pretty strong and hovering in the low 90s. After that, she was tired, so we attempted a nap. She almost immediately fell to 88 and stayed there for a bit, but then started de-sating to 80-82 and taking a long time to jump back up. They observed her like this for about another hour to see if she'd turn it around, but she wasn't quite ready and ended up back on oxygen.

The doctor let us know this morning that they were a bit concerned that it was taking her so long to get off of oxygen - especially since it was such a small amount. So, they wanted to try things a bit differently today if she couldn't stay off of her oxygen. They first sent her for a chest x-ray to rule out other issues (pneumonia, etc.) and more specifically, look for areas of her lungs that were sort of sitting dormant and not being used - which would explain why she was still needing a bit of oxygen. The x-ray didn't show anything, but they still think she's just not using all of her lungs after being sick so they have turned her oxygen WAY up (10x more) to help force her to take bigger, deeper breaths using all of her lungs. The hope is that we will do this all afternoon and night today and be able to try weaning tomorrow with more success.

So, hopefully this will be just the treatment she needed to overcome her need for a bit of oxygen. I'm really hopeful that we will be successful tomorrow with weaning since she made it so long today without being on oxygen (about 3.5 hours - although the last 1 hour was pretty rocky) and is getting this 'treatment' today/tonight.

So, hopefully my update for Day 8 will be that it worked and we're heading home. I hope, I hope, I hope!

**Edit: Our nurse just came in (she's my favorite night nurse- yay!) and let us know that we actually are going to try to wean her again tonight. Fingers crossed!

After bath last night (look at her fuzzy hair!) and cuddling with the lamb her big brother sent to her. It's his lamb from when he had RSV and was in the hospital. He was very excited about having us bring it to her. :)

My alert little lady keeping an eye on everything tonight. 

And this is what I spend 90% of my day staring at. 

Day 6 Updates

Not much to update today. They decided to just leave her as-is and she is exactly the same as yesterday. Still stable with oxygen on, and her sats crash as soon as it is removed. They try to wean her oxygen every 4-6 hours or so - one of these days it has to work, right? We are so close, but yet SO far from going home. All she has to do is get off of her oxygen and make it through a long nap and nurse for a full feed without de-sating and then we get to go home. Unfortunately, she is nowhere near able to stay off of her oxygen for even 5 minutes (and in most cases, plummets within 30 seconds).

I gave her a little sponge bath tonight and you'd think I was torturing her. Her hair is all fuzzy and adorable now. :) She is really becoming much more alert and is able to hold her head up for long periods of time. She has been very curious the past two days, and looks all around our room really examining everything. It's fun to see her more awake.

Colin came to visit Mike and me for dinner tonight and it was fun to see him. I also left the hospital for the first time today since she was admitted and headed home to spend a few hours with our big kiddo. He wouldn't talk to me at first (mad at me for leaving him, I assume), but he quickly got over it when I asked what he wanted to do... this is a kid after my own heart. He wanted to go to Target and get a "Mickey Meal" (which is a little thing in the produce aisle with cheese cubes, apples, and pretzels all in a Mickey shaped container). Once we got home with it, he wanted to cuddle on the couch and was so excited that I let him lay on top of me since I hadn't allowed it since my c-section. He was excited that mama's belly was feeling better. Love that kid!!

Cora - Day 5 Update

We are ending day 5 right now and Cora seems to be getting worse. She's still on oxygen, but when they tried to wean it today, her sats would crash lower than they ever have. Her sats while on oxygen have been lower today too, and this evening, they are almost low enough to need to bump up her oxygen. Actually, they ARE low enough to need that, but she keeps rebounding and coming up to where she needs to be, so they are holding off - for now. I would be shocked if she makes it through the night without an increase in oxygen.

She will be going for a chest x-ray in the morning to make sure they aren't missing anything. Her lungs actually sound completely clear which is great - but is sort of surprising considering that's typically not the case with RSV. I'm very thankful that her lungs aren't all gunky.

We've also been told a few times this evening that she will likely be placed on a ventilator or CPAP in the near future to help force her lungs to expand enough to really breathe. I need to ask if they can keep her on this floor if she is placed on one of those, or if she would have to go to the NICU/PICU. I don't think I will see the doctor again tonight, so I'll get my questions answered in the morning when he comes around and we'll know more at that point anyways since we will have been able to see how she did through the night.

Don't think we'll be going home anytime soon...

She's very cute :)

Cora - Wednesday Morning/Afternoon Update

Not much to report today as things are pretty much the same as yesterday. They tried to wean her oxygen last night and it was not successful. So much of a failure that she ended up on 4x the oxygen that she was on originally because her sats fell so low. They weaned her back down to where she had been, and she did well all night.
They tried weaning her off again this morning when the respiratory therapist was here, and again, her sats dropped quickly, so they turned it back on after only a couple of minutes.
The doctor wanted to try again when he rounded later this morning, so he turned it off, and while they started to fall, he wanted to try to leave her off. They need her to maintain 88 or above (if you're not familiar with O2 sats, 100 is the best, and 92 and above is pretty good. 88 isn't really a good number, but it would be good enough to get us home.). She kept dropping to 85/86/87, but since she would recover and hover around 88-90, they allowed her to test the waters for about an hour. After about an hour, she started looking really, really pale, and her head was bobbing with every breath and her retractions got much worse. A few minutes later, her sats fell to the very low 80s/high 70s so back on oxygen she went. Luckily, she does very well when she's on oxygen and it's clear that she's just not ready to give it up yet.

She is up to a whopping 7lbs, 14ozs (7lbs, 11oz at birth) as of last night.

I am ready for my baby to get better so that we can go home and be with the other half of our family. In the meantime, I've never been on Facebook so much in my life (it's my main connection to the outside world!) and I am totally up on the current news stories. Pretty sure I'm going to pin thousands of things total on Pinterest this week too as I just sit here on my laptop while she sleeps. Maybe she'll be ready to give up the oxygen tomorrow.