DAY 11

I am sitting in the waiting room right now because they are switching Faith over to a conventional vent...again...so we will see if she can tolerate this time. Cross your fingers she is strong enough now!

As you saw in the picture, she is much more alert today. It is wonderful to see her eyes open and have more clarity to them. However, when she is more alert, she starts pulling at all of her tubes and a sedative has to be given. Whatever it takes to help her heal.

She is leaking from every site there is and dressings are having to be changed every 1/2 hour. Things are leaking all over her lines and creating skin breakdown, which is another source for infection to enter. Faith is making these poor nurses work for their money!!! She has two nurses at all times and neither one get to sit down very often. I don't know how their poor feet do it for 12 hours straight! Like I have said before, everyone here is amazing.

They tried to start feeds via her G-Tube last night, but had some problems. There is a great amount of air in her stomach and they are not sure why. Surgery came in this morning to discuss it. Again, they are going to wait it out since she doesn't seem to be in distress from it which does not make it an emergency at this point. If she had a large hole in the bowels or somewhere else, we should have known by now. The drainage is thin and primarily clear so as long as it doesn't change, they would like to avoid opening her up. Us too!

I wanted to go home and see the other kids yesterday but a couple of them are sick so I was not able to. We can't take the risk of bringing something back to Faith. They were so understanding and seriously deserve awards for being the best siblings ever AND just being the greatest kids in general. We are so lucky to have them!!