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Night and Day

Today's post is a twofer.

Yesterday started out well enough. Mom and Dad got a bit of hands-on time with Eleanor with her lid off. Things stayed mostly good until about 3pm.

El's blood pressure was low yesterday. She was at 25, but because of her hypertension, she should have been in at least the 40-50 range (normal for babies is 25-30).

A surgeon was called in to remove the chest tubes in her right side and replace them with a larger tube, usually used on bigger kids. The tubes that were already placed in her right side were not sucking the air out of the right lung as they should have been.

Because of the procedure and the low blood pressure, she was given steroids to help her out, and subsequently her blood sugar went back up.

Between yesterday and today, she's had just a spot of insulin to get her blood glucose level back down, and it is already down from this morning. She'll have another BGT (blood glucose test) at about 9pm tonight just to ensure that number is still moving in the right direction!

Today, Eleanor is doing great. Kim said she felt immediately better arriving to the hospital this morning from last night. Her numbers looked really good and she has been weaned off her nitric again and is tolerating it like a champ, with her oxygen steady in the 20s ("normal" humans breathe at a 21%  room rate). She's on morphine for comfort. She did a great job with her pm feeding and filled up a diaper (those kidneys are doing good work)! We're rooting for poo number 2 overnight.

The area on her right side where her old tubes were are now sutured (most times they just let these close on their own, but the attending surgeon decided to suture them, which is also fine), and her new tube looked great, with little to no redness.

Tomorrow, Kim will have a checkup on her incision in the morning.

We are all rooting for Eleanor that she continues having only good days! Mom's been giving her pep talks before she leaves the hospital each night, but it's up to Eleanor to do the heavy lifting! So far, she's done a miraculous job.

Pictured below is El's tiny mask, used to protect her eyeballs during light therapy (packet of animal crackers for size comparison). In the background, her one week old milestone card!



Comments

  1. Praying for her little body to get stronger and stronger every day. May the Angels protect her. She's a toughiee. God speed for recovery to Kim. ❤❤❤you all.

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