Day 2

First off thank you everyone for your emails, posts on facebook, & messages. It means a lot to know there are many people standing in the gap and praying for Laila. The support is so much appreciated.

Laila had a good day. She got to come off the ventilator about 9:30 this morning (Thurs 30th) and then at 1:30 they did an xray and it was good. They just did an xray again at about 10pm and she is starting to collect fluid in her lungs. This is mainly due to her not wanting to breath deep. She has a raspy sounding cough from being intubated and it hurts to breath deep. They called her breathing pattern "splinting" and twice she had an oxygen desat when I was in the room and once when Jarrod was in there. Her desat is like 79%-80% so to us it doesnt freak us out because if we would have saw anything in the 80% range a week ago it would have been a high-5 moment. We have seen her at 60 something percent so we have to adjust to the "new normal".

Her heart rhythm is still being paced. Still not sure when that will come out. She has a funky little pattern going on. She goes out of sinus rhythm into something they were calling intermittent blocks. But then she comes out of it and she never shows any distress.

She DOES not like the chest tubes when they have to squeeze them to push the fluid down. That makes her very mad! I feel so bad for her.

Around 3 she got out an atrial line. We had to leave the room when they did it. But after that procedure she was allowed to start eating ice chips. She is on fluid restrictions of 30 ml per hour. But she wants her ICE!!! Luckily after "eating" awhile she gets tired and falls back asleep. She tolerated the ice well so they let her have apple juice. We werent in there because we stepped out to eat because we THOUGHT she was in a very deep sleep, but the nurse said she really liked it!

She is also starting the breathing exercise thing and we brive her with ice chips to do it. This is making her cough which will help with the fluid.

Overall she is LAILA. She asked me "is my heart fixed?" and I told her "yes" and she gave me a look like "well then why do I feel so bad!?" When the alarms sound tonight she would look at the monitor and say "almost better???" Then when we ran out of her 30 ml of ice chips I told her they had to bring more and we would have to wait. Well she leaned over and said "use that sink right there" Duh!! Smart cookie! I quickly jerk a curtain closed, "what sink?" and I didnt fool her, trust me!!!

Word is maybe out of ICU on Saturday, but then again its a Holiday weekend and it just may be Monday. Her cardiologist said something about 2-4 weeks here possibly.... Whatever it takes we are in for the long haul if needed.


:)