What Now?

Sierra has been miserable since yesterday. She hasn't really slept at all since then. (Neither have I) She is breathing fast and making little groaning whimpering sounds.

My motherly intuition says something is not right. I hate seeing her so miserable. I am worried about my baby.

Please continue to pray for her. Also pray that we have a good night nurse. The nurse that we had for the past two nights has not been the best.

It's Out

Today the doctors took the ventilator out.

Sierra is doing well breathing on her own but she is pretty miserable. Poor baby is whimpering and complaining. They still have the feeding tube down her nose until she can resume feedings by bottle.

I tried giving her a bottle twice today but she wasn't really interested. They said that her throat is probably sore right now. Hopefully she will start feeling better soon.

Doing Better

Well, I think I figured out what happened yesterday. Sierra was doing really well yesterday until the evening. In the evening her oxygen saturation levels started dropping.

What happened was that around 4:30pm Sierra's nurse got another patient. The new patient rquired a lot of attention and so Sierra was pretty much neglected until the night nurses came on at 7:30.

Around 6:00 pm Sierra was coughing. I knew that she had to be suctioned. A different nurse came in, and I mentioned it. He would not suction her though because the notes said not to suction her (the notes were for when she was on the other ventilator because she wasn't suppossed to be suctioned while on it.).

Since she needed to be suctioned and was not, her saturation levels were dropping down to 90 and 89 (they are supposed to be above 95 the closer to 100 the better.)

When the night nurses came, I told them what was going on. They suctioned her and gave her TLC and within a few minutes her oxygen saturation levels jumped back up to 98 and have stayed between 98 and 100 since then.

Step forward, step backward....

Earlier today Sierra was doing really well, but this evening her numbers started dropping a bit. If they do not go back up soon the doctors will have to increase her oxygen levels.

Getting Better

Things are looking up. Sierra is doing well and they are continuing to wean her from the ventilator and the medications. Lord willing, she may be off of the ventilator by the end of this week.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers!

Update!

The doctors have been gradually weaning Sierra from the ventilator. This morning the doctor said that this morning's x-ray indicated one of two things. Either the settings on the ventilator needed to be bumped back up or else she was ready to go back on the other ventilator.

The doctor took the ventilator off of Sierra and manually bagged her so that she could feel how her lungs were doing and what steps needed to be taken. After doing that, they put her back on the first ventilator. The next 24-48 hours will be very important. If she doesn't do well she will have to be put back on the ossilating ventilator. If she does well she can stay on this ventilator and then gradually be weaned.

Please pray that she will do well on this ventilator.

Slowly but surely...

The last few days have been rather uneventful, which is a good thing. The doctors are in the process of very gradually weaning her from the vent. She will likely be on the current vetilator through the end of this week and then be put on the other ventilator.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

Today

Today was another relatively good day in that nothing negative has happened. Sierra is still on the oscillator ventilator and according to the doctors is still not stable. They still are blaming it on a virus although there also seems to be a bacterial infection. This has been a scary trip and I'm grateful for the respite. Hopefully in a few days they'll be able to get her back on a normal ventilator and off the oscillator ventilator.

I'm also grateful for all the support everyone has been giving us in the form of text messages, blog comments, calls and visits. My mom came in from California last night and is helping us with administrative stuff.

Thanks for all the prayers and support!

Jason Fedelem

Best day so far.

Today was the best day Sierra has had so far. She didn't give us any scares.

They did find a bacteria in her lungs so they put her on another antibiotic to fight it off. They are beginning to very slowly wean her off of the ventilator. They will have to wean her off of the one ventilator, put her on the other ventilator and then wean her off of it as well.

We must have broken a record for the number of visitors we had today. We had about ten visitors not counting family! We enjoyed being able to visit with everyone.

My mother-in-law arrived today so that is a huge blessing! She will be able to help with holding down the fort at home and once Sierra is more stable she can stay with Sierra while I get out for a few hours every once in a while.

A Little Bit Better

We had a quiet night last night which meant that I got some much needed sleep.

This morning the doctor said that he liked the way things were looking. He warned us though that the next couple of days will have there ups and downs.

The way he explained it was like a pilot flying a plane. If the plane's nose was too high in the air and the pilot tried to correct it but ended up overcorrecting then the nose would be too low. It is all a matter of figuring out exactly what needs to be done in order to get the plane to fly level.