Need prayers

Katie Mei is now with Daddy at the hospital and I am home. She is still not eating and drinking and that is seriously affecting her electrolytes. Jay tells me they are salting her food and I can only imagine that is going to make her want it even less.

She was moved from ICU to the step down unit yesterday afternoon after I left. She no longer has the constant 24-hour vigilance of a nurse, and I am concerned for her. The Momma in me doesn't trust the staff enough, though in my brain I know they are doing an excellent job. I had asked them to give her pain meds on schedule, but after I left the step-down unit put her on an as-needed program which I am not happy about. I asked Jay to change that today.

Please keep her in prayer for continued improvement. She was doing well with the right lung cavity drainage slowing down, but today I am told she has fluid on her left side now. That is bad because she does not have the chest tube on the left side so there is no external removal of fluid. I hope they do not have to take her back into surgery to put in another tube. The increased fluid levels mean lower lung funtion and thus, lower oxygen saturation.

I am feeling helpless and sad today, since I miss her deeply but cannot be in both places at the same time. Merrilee and Jacob need time with me, and they are both reacting to the upheaval in our family now. Please pray for them.

Love,
Petrie

Huge Turnaround Late This Afternoon

I am so glad to report that prayers were answered at 3:45 pm today. After watching her be so sick all day yesterday, and being sad to see her so depressed and unresponsive today, I was thrilled when she "came back" at 3:45.

Her sodium level had gotten very low, to the point of the doctors worrying about her having seizures, so the nurse was preparing a sodium drip. Before the IV was even set up, Katie Mei turned to me and looked me in the eyes. She hadn't done that at all today. She started to babble a tiny bit, and even wanted to eat her cheerios and rasins. Her oxygen level started to climb and her chest drainage immediately slowed down. It was amazing. It was instant change. I can only attribute it to God's hand; He answers prayer! Even the nurse and staff was shocked at how it happened.

She is now resting comfortably. I need to go back and check on the results of her latest blood test, but I'm positive her sodium level is back up. She's been dosed up good.

Thank you all for praying, and please continue to hold the many other families in your prayers. Can you believe one local mom who's baby is in the CICU here actually went home today and cooked huge amounts of food for the rest of us tonight. I had a delicious home cooked meal, including salad and garlic toast. It was heavenly. She truly blessed us all even in her own time of need. I am so thankful for her graciousness to all of us. I have found a beautiful family in the other parents here, and am so enjoying their presence. I am uplifted many times a day, and have the opportunity to pray with others, for others, several times. It is a gift I never would have known if we hadn't brought Katie Mei home. Blessings abound!

Love,

Petrie

Difficult Weekend

Katie Mei has not been doing well this weekend. She spent most of yesterday (Saturday) vomiting. She has not eaten and kept down solid food since Wednesday. Her chest cavity is also still draining a lot of fluid and hasn't decreased since Friday, thus they cannot take out the drainage tube. Last night she was given an anti-emetic for the vomiting and today she took formula and a little yogurt, but still has no desire to eat. She just wants to lie there with her eyes closed. It's sad to see.

On a positive note, she returned to normal heart rhythm late Friday night and was taken off the pace maker, so she's been holding her own since then. She's had some minor arrhythmias, but nothing anyone here is concerned about. She also had the heart tube removed (that was for administering drugs directly to the heart if needed) and had no problems with that.

Our big prayer request now is that she get back to eating solids and that the drainage would decrease dramatically.

Thanks for holding us up,
Petrie

Pink Fingers!

Day two

Katie Mei is doing pretty well considering the trauma her body has just experienced. She's on a pace maker for the time being because her heart just won't keep it's own rhythm. She drank lots of pedialye and formula this morning, so she's satiated that way. I'm thankful she's able to keep the fluids down.

We're still seeing more chest drainage than we'd like, so her chest tube will probably stay in another day. Hopefully she'll do better by the end of the day and into tomorrow.

Thank you all for praying and thinking of us.

Love,
Petrie

She is in the ICU

Well, it seems like a dream, but she's out of surgery and Dr. Spray just came to talk to us. He said it was "routine" and nothing out of the usual for him. Waaaaaay out of the usual for me, but I was glad to hear there were no surprises. He said she tolerated the procedure well and she's in ICU now getting rewarmed (oh, that sounds so icky to me). He said the her O2 levels went lower once he did the surgery so he had to close up the fenestration somewhat so there wasn't so much blue blood flow between the heart and pulmonary artery.

He also said her heartbeat was strong after surgery, which is great. Once the heart has been "turned off" for awhile, it sometimes doesn't want to get back to work, so that was a concern we had. Hope it keeps up the job it's supposed to do.

We won't be able to go back and see her for about 45 minutes to an hour. They're going to try taking out her breathing tube and get her set up with all the wires and whatnot. I'll post more when I can.

Please keep her in prayer for no kidney damage, no brain damage, no excess fluid around the lungs and heart, and stable heart rhythm. She still has a lot of recovering to do, and we are told that it sometimes take three days or so before fluid starts to accumulate, so she's not out of the woods yet.

Love,
Petrie

She's in surgery

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Katie Mei went into surgery at about 7:25 am, and is still in there. We got an update that the surgeon was right in the middle of it at 9:30 am and everything was going well. We expect another update in about ten minutes, so I'm going to head back to the waiting room. I'll post when I can.

Love,
Petrie