CV ICU Day 2

Today hasn't been very eventful which I am thankful for. This morning during rounds, the only thing the doctors changed was that they decided to slowly decrease the calcium Elle was getting. Calcium helps the heart pump, but Elle's levels were a little too high - so they slowly decreased the calcium level and increased another medicine to off set the calcium. She's getting TPN which is suped up Gatorade - its all the nutrients is needs since she isn't getting any food. Her blood pressure has been good all day which is so reassuring after the ups and downs of yesterday. They gave her a dose of lasiks around 1:00pm to help her go to the bathroom more and it did the trick. She will be getting another dose around midnight to help her loose some of the fluid her body has accumulated. Her coloring is kind of off - she's really pale. I asked this morning if they were going to have to give her blood and they may later on - but they want to see if Elle can recover on her own. They decided this morning to keep her sedated all day to give her another full day to recover as much as possible before pushing her at all. She woke up a few times during the day but would just roll her head around and then go right back to sleep. I felt a little more comfortable today to actually put a bow in Elle's hair. It's a cute little zebra print thing that isn't too obtrusive since her head has wires running all around it! She's still on the ventilator and still has the chest tubes draining from her chest. Today they did a volume support test with the ventilator where they basically make it where the machine doesn't do any work and Elle has to actually use her lungs. The test was for 2 hours and Elle did great. Her lungs seemed to be working great. They will do another volume support trial tonight and then maybe (just maybe) they will take the ventilator out tomorrow. I'm in no rush for them to take it out if Elle isn't ready for it...although I can not wait to hear my baby cry! NEVER, NEVER get frustrated with the sound of your child crying because you don't know how much you miss it when they can't. I don't want to post too many pictures because I don't want them to scare anyone! It's pretty terrifying to see your child so helpless and know there is absolutely nothing you can do to make it better! Our prayers are continuous! We trust fully in the Lord and his perfect timing and plans for our little Elle Belle!

CV ICU on September 24, 2009 - hours after surgery - all the tubes and wires are covered up because her body temp was low..but they had to keep the incision site un covered

Lee and Elle in CV ICU on September 26, 2009

Elle's leopard print blanket and zebra print bow on September 26, 2009