Rebekah looks very cute today. She has a purple bow in her hair and purple socks on and all of her little friends (stuffed animals) are hanging out in her crib with her. She has gotten so many comments on the big pink hippo that she got from our church before surgery. It is a little eye-catching! :)
We were able to talk with Dr. Graham just a few minutes ago, and he is planning to let Rebekah have another day of rest today. Yesterday there was talk of extubating Rebekah today, but that has been placed on hold until Rebekah gets rid of more fluid. This morning the doctors increased the amount of Diurel that Rebekah is getting, and she is still on the Bumex every 6 hours as well as the Bumex drip. We're hoping to see lots of output today!
Dr. Graham did favor reducing the amount of Rebekah's morphine today to allow her body to take over more work on its own. Right now, Rebekah is on a Precedex drip, a morphine drip and bolus morphine and versed combinations every six hours. That's a lot of sedation! He wants to gradually reduce the amount of morphine that Rebekah is getting and increase the Precedex if necessary. So, the Precedex will allow Rebekah's body to wake up without Rebekah being consciously awake, and that is the goal. Dr. Graham still wants Rebekah to sleep, but he wants her to start breathing more on her own. So far this morning, Rebekah is making an effort to breathe over the ventilator, and that is good news!
Rebekah did have an echocardiogram and chest x-rays early this morning. The echo still showed dysfunction in the right side of her heart, but Dr. Graham thought it looked a slight bit better than yesterday. Rebekah's lungs are very wet, again due to excess fluid, but that is another reason to keep her on the vent for today. There is no sense in making her body work even harder than it already will when we transition her off the vent.
That's about it for the morning update. As I have been sitting here, the diuretics are beginning to work a little, so that's good news! So far this morning Rebekah has a negative fluid balance, which is exactly what they want to see at the end of the day. (Negative fluid balance means that she peed out more fluid than she took in. That's what will get rid of the excess fluid.) Oh, Dr. Graham also said they will begin feeding Rebekah small amounts (of what, I have no idea) to see how her stomach can handle the food. Probably they will start with Pedialyte or Pediasure and go from there.
Thanks for praying for our sweet Rebekah Grace!!
Nancy
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