So we have officially been here 4 weeks and 2 days or exactly one month. But I would rather like to think of today as Karter's three month birthday! Looking back three months ago to that Sunday evening it is astonishing to me how far she has come. This time three months ago we were fearing the worst and now look where we are today! We have a BEAUTIFUL baby girl who has fought for everything. She is my inspiration.
Karter is OFF of the ventilator and now on just a nasal cannula. However, she is on somewhat of a special nasal cannula called a vapor therm cannula which in essence is shooting vapors (& some oxygen) through her nose to help break up the junk in her lungs. Her lungs have NOT shown very much improvement since our last blog but they did decided to take her off of the ventilator because it was better for the recovery of her heart. She is so strong! They have pulled her off of her blood pressure medicine and have almost weaned all of her sedation medication. They hope to have her off of the sedation by the end of this evening. They will also be pulling her off of her post OP heart medication which allowed her heart to remain pretty calm so that it could heal. All in all she is showing great improvement strides in everything but her lungs. They do feel as if their "massage" treatments and cannula are helping her to get the junk out. She has coughed up a lot of it today and hopefully will continue to do so throughout the night. She started taking feeds today through a MG tube (feeding tube). She can not take out of a bottle until her lungs are a little clearer so that she will not over exert herself. Karter may have to have another drainage tube put in her belly though tomorrow because she is still having too much fluid in he abdominal area. Right now they are taking this fluid out through a tube in her nose, but this is just a temporary fix. If she continues to have a high rate of outflow then they will insert the tummy drain to help out. She still has one drain coming out of her heart region that they are hopeful to be able to pull out tomorrow because the drainage has slowed throughout the day. So all in all Karter is doing good, she is just having a few minor bumps in the road to her full recovery.
Yesterday we took Addison Grace to the Dallas Zoo. She had an absolute blast!!! She rode in a Safari wagon, and really enjoyed the monkeys. In fact we did not see very much more than the monkeys. We did see the elephants, giraffes, and the African animals but other than that we did not get a chance to see everything. It was a pretty hot afternoon so after about two hours she was done with the Zoo. We stopped in the gift shop and got her a monkey purse which she just adores and got Karter a huge stuffed elephant for her room. Karter I do believe loves her elephant as well! :)
~*Update on Karter's Bow of Faith*~
We received a lot of boxes in the mail and Terri, my mother in law, brought them up to the hospital. As soon as I get them tagged I will get a count together but I am sure we will be well over 250 bows and hats donated!!! We are now going to be working on sending some bows to other children's hospitals over Texas. I have a volunteer that would like to do Cooks in Dallas, but I will be looking for people to help me get them to Houston, Austin, San Antonio. If you know anyone please let me know!!! I will take them, tag them, and then send them off to the desired location! How Awesome to be expanding this project already?? The generosity of people has been amazing!!! God has truly already blessed this project!
Anyways Karter Bear just woke up so I am going to attend to her! If I can find where I put my camera I will post some pics from the zoo and of Karter later tonight or tomorrow!
Love,
Tara
No comments:
Post a Comment