Today has held many feelings.
Grandma Ann left us to continue with her travels. She flew in 2 weeks ago to help me while I was getting transferred from hospital to my one bedroom apartment which was provided from our insurance company. She helped where she could and got to see and spend time with Grace. Goodbye Grandma Ann.
Gracie had a very hard night with desats, extreme Brady's, low blood pressure and low oxygen levels. Her heart is working way too hard. The meds haven't been working to close up her PDA vessel. She had her second Echo-cardiogram this morning. It came back with nothing changed in her heart. Two doctors sat down with me and discussed what Grace needed. Heart surgery, tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. Even though I know she needed the surgery, uncertainty has started to settle in.
Time started to fly by as March Of Dimes came by to do a photo shoot with little Gracie and I. It was such a beautiful thing. They posed Gracie in my hands and took fantastic pictures. They do these photo shoots free of charge just to capture this stage of life for Gracie. They did it in between CPAP change-over so she didn't have anything on her face. It'll take about 4 weeks to get the photos back.
She dropped back down to her true weight. All the fluid has left her body after the Endocin meds were stopped. She'll be going back up in weight as they are going to be pumping in the fluids for surgery. I just went up for touch time and they are giving her another blood transfusion to get her counts up to 40. They will also have extra blood at surgery if she happens to need it. They have her warming bed ready for the surgery. She'll be going on the respirator/ventilator in the middle of the night and will stay on it for a couple of days after surgery. Her fluids are changing to just IV fluid, no more total nutrition until after a day or so after surgery. She'll be switching back to the large Giraffe incubator tonight. Darn, she just graduated from that one 1 1/2 days ago. She has definitely had a huge setback.
Grace's big sister, Meghan, stayed behind when the family left so she could help me out. Since I'm still trying to heal...she is doing everything to help me out.
PLEASE PRAY for Gracie! She really needs prayer NOW!! Thank you!
I'll add photos after we get back to my apartment.
You know, I don't think I ever really knew what the March of Dimes /did/, before this. They were just a name I remembered from commercials in the 80s or something.
ReplyDeleteAnd right now they're a big part of my life. Our photo session was wonderful -- I can't wait to see the pictures!
Damon
(fellow NICU inmate parent)