My the difference a few hours can make

My trip to the NICU this morning was with Livy in tow.  Its kind of commical in a painful sort of way.  We're trying to keep her quiet and the precious little 2 year old that she is it was a bit of a gong show.

For starters, Payton has a big star shape on her hospital room floor.  So Livy spent a lot of energy trying to move things off the star and it wasn't until she had a meltdown while I was trying to take the garbage can away from her for the 10th time that she started saying "Wanna see the sun". 

I quickly corrected her that it was a star (the sun is in the main entrance) and moved the garbage so she could see the star.  Much happier camper and lesson learned - pick your battles Mommy.

So my update this morning was with a noisy toddler in tow and I'm just fortunate that Payton is 'snowed' (like the nurses call her) and that she has her own room so we're not disturbing other babies in the NICU.

Dwayne popped into see Payton later and he updated some of the changes they made in a few short hours.  Once he grabbed Livy from me I was able to go see for myself.

They have again dropped her vent rate and she's back down to 45 (her lowest being 40).  Her PEEP is up a bit to 7.3 but again I was told this is pressure for her exhales (I believe to keep her lungs from collapsing and was told its typical to increase after a bleed like she had).

So she's now breathing over the vent again and she's having good big breaths when she does (again still on room air).

Her sedative has been dropped a bit so she's a bit more active...not much, she's still pretty passive but every once in a while she moves around and I even saw her peek open her eyes.

Her puffyness is coming down and her double/triple chin is much smaller.  She's still puffy around the face a bit but I was told that she's lost a few hundred grams overnight so she's doing great getting rid of her excess surgery fluid.

They've also decreased her Nitric Oxide.  They are down to less than 3 and will continue little by little over night.  Tomorrow they will do an ECHO prior to trying to ween her off the last little bit.

Another big deal (for a CDH mom) is she's continuing to pass poop. It wasn't just a one time deal and from what I understand, its now a few times a day that they're cleaning up small amounts of meconium.  I even got to be part of her diaper change and got to wipe of the tar like stuff tonight.  So much fun when you only touch your baby about 10 times in a day and usually those touches include foot grabs and head pats.

Tonight I'm home for the night while Payton is living the morphine life for one more night.  Then back to the city to be close for when they begin more morphine/vent weening.

My one sister is leaving tonight and I have to say how incredibly thankful I have been to have her around.  Because Payton has done so well she's leaving 5 days earlier than initally planned so we're very happy for that though sad to see her go.

Before leaving though, both my sisters, my mom and a friend are heading over to the Red Cross to donate blood.  There have been a couple of others who have said they are going to donate (cousin and a friend) and I'm so incredibly thankful for the very thoughtful gesture especially in lieu of the fact that Payton has recieved 3 donations of varying form from blood donations: 2 administrations of Albumin and one Red Blood Cell.  So a very huge thank you to those who have made that very personal effort on behalf of Payton.