I Wear My Sunglasses at Night

Steven here...

I know, I know...it's been a while since an update. BUT...that's a good thing. Though the updates today were few, the work that went into them, and how much it took out of Ellie, were actually pretty intense. And she perservered like the finest of soldiers!

Mid-evening, we got an unofficial word from Jay (who performed her EKG) that her PDA defect (that allowed blood to bypass re-oxygenation in the lungs) appeared to have closed itself off!!! We all believe Jay and think the cardiologist will say the say. Her PFO heart defect (the other source of her murmur - I think I mis-abbreviated it earlier) is still present, but could possibly resolve itself as well. My impression from Dr. Tolentino was that is was a concern, yes, but a somewhat lesser one than the PDA.

Ellie enjoys her tanning bed! It's making her better (preventative maintenance for some jaundice)...and she's getting a "tan"! Now, it'll be really hard to make her understand in later years how I could justify this tanning bed exposure, but will be SOOOOO opposed to her laying in a tanning bed "because".

The insertion of the PICC line takes (a) a lot of sedation and (b) a lot of energy out of a little bitty girl. As such, it's not surprising that Ellie's O2 level had to be bumped up to 40%. That's ok for a couple of reasons: (1) it helps calm her down a little bit and rest easier and (2) late this evening her arterial blood gas report showed her O2 was a little low. It's a little step back on a big step forward day; well, really it was like a little hesitation in the step forward to make sure her footing was sure. When I saw her about 30 mins ago, her O2 level was back down to 38% and they planned to leave it put over night. At the same time they bumped her O2 up, they increased her breaths per minute (BPM) from 35 back to 40; this was short lived as they felt good enough about things to lower her BPM back to 35 around 7:30 or so.

So, she's resting quite comfortably and all is well. For tonight, no news is good news as we look to wean her O2 boost back down.