Congratulations!

We have won an all-expense paid (!!) trip to our local hospital...room 6518 to be exact....indefinitely! Okay, maybe not indefinitely, but certainly at least until tomorrow. I'm going to quit speculating on when we may get to go home because something seems to happen every time to prove me wrong!

Scenes from 6518...what we look at every day!

So last night we were all ready to get our walking papers today and hit the road when Rebekah decided to desat around 76 for about 10 minutes. We turned her oxygen up gradually from .25 liters to 1 liter before her sats came back up to the low 80's. Dr. Seth and Dr. Roach (who is an awesome fly-killer, by the way!) came in and we speculated that maybe Rebekah had gotten too much fluid and wasn't able to clear it all out, thus making her heart and lungs work harder. So, we turned off Rebekah's IV drip and gave her Lasix and waited to see what happened. About an hour after doing that I went to bed and Rebekah's nurse gradually weaned her oxygen back down to .25 liters during the night. Right now Rebekah is at .20 liters and her oxygen sats are hovering around 81. That's not ideal, but it's not below our magic number '80' either.

Feeding her bottle to her baby doll. :)

As of this afternoon, Rebekah has had off and on fussy spells. Her sats are fluctuating from about 76 to around 85 and her breathing is more rapid than usual. She is also sneezing and coughing a bit and sounds a little stuffy. All of that earned us at least one more night's stay for observation, and we'll see how she is doing tomorrow.

Rebekah was in a good mood last night!

As for Charleston next week, it's all up in the air. Today I spoke with the lady who handles admissions for the cath lab, and she was very hesitant to let me know anything one way or the other. I will need to call her on Monday and let her know how Rebekah is doing. She will then talk with Dr. Baker (the cath lab surgeon) and he will let us know if we can come or not.

This entire student nursing group from Clemson all came to Rebekah's room to listen to her heart. Truncus is not something most of them will ever come across in their patients, so they all wanted to see Rebekah and her cute little leggings! :) Rebekah loved playing with them.

Dr. Darby has been by to see Rebekah this afternoon, and his "gut" feeling is that Rebekah is coming down with some kind of respiratory illness. There are no specific signs that make it a definite diagnosis, but both Dr. Darby and Rebekah's nurse (who has been with us for three days) have the same opinion. Currently, we just bumped Rebekah back up to .50 liters of oxygen because she was not able to keep her sats above 80. Her breathing has become a little more uneven, and I can hear her breathing from about four feet away. Even with those little things, Rebekah is still in a good mood and laughing and playing.

I love this look! "Hmmm...what are you up to now?"

We are probably going to see someone from Cardiology this afternoon. Dr. Darby said he would be recommending that they come by to listen to Rebekah and give their opinion on the cath lab next week. Dr. Lucas is not on call this month, so we may see Dr. Ronniker, who is just as nice and knowledgeable as Dr. Lucas. So many new friends for Rebekah to play with! :)

I like to stick my tongue out!

That's about it for now. We just continue to hang out and try to get our little girl well enough to go home. I'm so thankful that she has such a sweet disposition even when she's not feeling the greatest.

Nancy