A Room With A View

As of 10:00 am Saturday morning, all cardiac patients have been moved to the brand new Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, further known as the CICU. Mallory was, in fact the last one moved over, and tolerated the move. And as you all know, I got some great pictures of the move! I say they were saving the best for last. She is in room #9, the only room with a beautiful view of the Arch!

Saturday was uneventful, as we like it. They didn't make many changes. They had started feeding her Pediasure in a very small amount through her NG tube, 1ml per hour and have added Lipids and TPN. Those are nutrients and fats.

I sent Scott back to the apartment to sleep and stayed with Mallory. She had another good night. They took the cooling blanket off her bed since she has been maintaining her temp. and started backing off her Epi at around 4am.

She had a chest x-ray this morning to see if her PICC line ,and vent tube is still placed correctly. They decided they vent tube needs to come out about 1cm and have some concerns the PICC line is leaking because she is starting to retain some fluid on her left side. All of her lines and IV's are on her left side, so it may just be the matter that she has all fluids and meds going in on the same side and she is on high doses of everything and has been lying flat on her back. Again, we will have to wait and see.

So the plan for today is to start increasing her feeds, take her off the paralitic drug and get her to move around a bit, raise the hed of her bed, and possibly decrease the rate of the vent and let her start to breathe over it. Once the paralitic wears off she will naturally start to breathe over the vent. We have found she likes to have her pacemaker set at a higher rate, usually at 170, and the Docs don't seem to concerned about that right now. She is maintaining good blood pressures and is peeing VERY well. That just means her kidney's are getting the blood to them that they need to work, and that her Lasix is working. They are thinking the right side if her heart is starting to work a bit better. They won't do an ECHO until Monday, so we will know more then.

Since there are currently 8 kids in the CICU, 7 boys and Mallory, the night nursing staff has dubed her Snow White and the boys the Seven Dwarfs. When I told Scott that he started to laugh and said, "Well, she is sleeping like Snow White". :)

Our prayer for today, is that the baby steps she takes today will be forward in nature. Rev. Hal continues to visit with me, Scott and Mallory, and continues to pray with us for a safe journey for Mallory. No matter how long that journey is going to be, I know that God is holding Mallory in his hands giving her the strength she needs to take each baby step. We will forever be grateful to Rev. Hal for all the support he is giving us through this difficult journey. Thanks again for all the prayers, we will take all we can get!