Friday morning (at last!)

Hallo :)

I went in to see Faith this morning before work again as they rushed in yet another baby right as I arrived for my visit last night. It would have been AGES while they did lines and everything on the new bub so I just came home. Well, after waiting 20 minutes of the 30 minutes that I had to spare before I had to leave for work, I got a whole 10 minutes with Faith, rawr!

Anyway, I spoke to Dr. Slaughter last night and Dr. Cartwright this morning... Dr. Slaughter is quite convinced that Faith has a stricture in her bowel, so basically a portion of the bowel has been damaged and has narrowed as it healed which is causing problems. If this is the case then they will need to do a little surgery to remove the damaged portion and hook up the two good sides. Dr. Slaughter said that the surgery is usually very sucessful in little babies, but that Faith is REALLY not a little baby anymore in the opinion of the surgeons... even if I still see her as a little baby :)

Dr. Cartwright seemed quite unconvinced about it this morning, but he's always more optimistic so he isn't resigned to it being a stricture. Either way, he was crankily ordering a test today where they give Faith some high-contrast dye down her top end and take a series of scans to see how the dye progresses through her guts. If she has a stricture the dye will stop somewhere. If it doesn't... then we're still clueless! I hope that they find the problem so they can fix it and move on to "kick the vent" as Dr. Slaughter said :)

Fingers crossed we get some results :)

So I went to see Faith bright and early this morning before work. I couldn't get in last night as they were doing lines and another baby came rushing in so it just didn't work out. Gosh it will be nice if we ever get out of the ICU and there's no more rushing babies in and out. Nevermind :)

When I went in this morning, Faith was looking pretty much the same. I got to do her cares again and she's still weeing lots! Her tummy is looking quite massive again in proportion to the rest of her, but I imagine that's not a matter of her tummy getting bigger but that the rest of her is getting smaller since the swelling is going down. They were doing another abdominal X-Ray today to check on her guts so I'll let you all know what (if anything) they find there when I go back tonight. I don't WANT her to have surgery but I'm almost hoping that they find the problem so they can fix it instead of this waiting... oh well!

Today's Update

Hallo all! Since this is the first post I'll give a little bit of background... and then an update on what's the latest news so everyone is properly up to date (or at least as up to date as I am myself)!

Faith has had a very rough month. She was doing well and was up to 1.2 kg at the start of this month. Then the doctors had to re-do her arterial line as her original one had finally decided to stop working after being in for 4 weeks. Well, they got it in and all was looking okay, but the artery decided otherwise and spasmed shut and caused MASS MAYHEM! The arm turned blue/black up to her shoulder and a few other little spots on her body turned colors as a reaction sort of thing. And her gut completely stopped working.

Over the last few weeks she swelled up to the size of a blimp/truck/mountain (take your pick you get the idea) and has been battling with a pretty gnarly looking arm. However, she is finally starting to get rid of some of the swelling from the gut dramas and is more alert and mobile in her cot again (though not in the best mood because she still probably feels pretty yuck).

Now to the update of the day!

I haven't heard anything new today, so the latest news I have is from my visit last night :) I went in with our friend Luke to see Faith and I got to do nappy time, and Faith got to meet her... for lack of a better relation "Uncle Luke" She was awake for a little while, and it was great to see her peepers again :) She is still a bit swollen but at her last weigh they had her back down to 1.8 kg instead of being over 2 as she was at her worst. They are now using a "working weight" of 1.5 kg so they must think only 300g of that is fluid, which is MUCH better! She is still having bile coming up her feeding tube... it was going down and getting lighter over the weekend so they were considering starting her feeds again, but she's having naughty moments the last few days and sometimes it's over 10ml and a yuck color and sometimes it looks fine. The doctors are stumped about what's happening so she's been put on hold for now until they can find the problem to be able to fix it. They are still anticipating that they will need to do gut surgery at some point though :(

Also, her little arm is looking quite good to the elbow. From the elbow to the wrist looks like the skin will heal but it hasn't yet. It isn't looking any worse at least. However, the hand and wrist are yuck. But we'll deal with it and I'm sure Faith will be a very strong little girl to deal with it... she certainly has been so far :)

As a bonus today, here is a photo of her on Sunday when they had to retape her breathing tube. 1- You can actually see her upper lip! 2- she was trying to suck on the nurses finger as she held the tube in place, awww!