Post Surgery Morning Day 2

Addie had a great night last night. My mom stayed here so Zac and I could go get some rest at the Ronald McDonald house and my dad also stayed with us. That place is great. Leaving her was very very hard, but I knew I needed to get out of the hospital and get some rest. Our nurse yesterday was Kathy and she was great and our nurse from 7-7 last night was Krista and she was great too!

They did start a morphine drip around midnight to help with the pain, and she was able to rest well until around 5:30 this morning. The doctors were here for rounds around 8:30 this morning..about 12 people taking care of her! The plan for today is to extubate (take the breathing tube out) and then see how she does. They moved her breathes from the breathing tube down to assist 10 breaths/min, and she is actually taking about 26 breathes per minute, so she is doing a lot of the breathing on her own. They were just here to take the chest x-ray to check the placement of the tube and to check fluid in the lungs and provided that looks good, the plan is to extubate around noon....and then......we should get to hold her!!!!!! YEAH!

The next couple of hours could be hard leading up to the extubation because they want to decrease the amount of morphine and tylenol they give her as she needs to be pretty awake when the extubate because then she'll take better, deeper breaths. The more "druged" they are the less and more shallower breathes they take. So she might be slightly uncomfortable over the next couple of hours leading up to the extubation, but as soon as she is extubated she will get some tylenol to help her be comfy and then eventually will be able to take some food!

She really likes it when we put our hand under her head as it feels like we are holding her and that really calms her down and they also did an attempted swaddle to see if that would help her settle. It is so hard to see her squirm and attempt to cry, but she can't as the breathing tube goes affects the vocal cords so she doesn't make any sound. It is so sad to see so decreasing those crying spells makes me happy. Our nurse today is Erin, and she is great. She has been right in the room if she starts squirming or anything. So that's great.

Mom just headed back to the RM house to shower and get some rest and dad is headed back to IL to get back in the field.

Prayers for today.
1. That we can keep her comfy and settled prior to, during, and after the extubation and that the actual process of extubating goes well.
2. For the doctors and nurses to have the wisdome to know what she needs to keep her comfortable and healing.
3. That we will be able to hold our sweet baby as I know that will be the best thing to get her close to our bodies.
4. For continued peace for Zac and I and our family as we venture down this road to recovery.
5. Safe travels for my dad as he drives home.

Thank you! Here are some pics of what Addie is looking like as of this morning. Hopefully we'll have less tubes by tonights update!