We have had a rather up-and-down day today, but I'm happy to report that at the end of the day, we are ending on an up note!
This morning Rebekah was probably the worst she has been since Thursday. Her temperature was up, she had little to no urine output, her oxygen sats were hanging out in the mid 70's, and her lungs were sounding a little congested.
During the day, Rebekah seemed to rebound, her sats went up with the help of a little more oxygen, her temperature dropped and she started wetting her diapers a little.
My dolly helps me feel better.
The radiology technicians came back this afternoon and repeated Rebekah's chest x-ray again. Yesterday's x-rays looked good, but today's showed "a thickening in the bronchial vessels consistent with a viral illness." Basically, all signs still point to Rebekah having a virus of some sort that is causing her troubles.
Rebekah looking cute last week.
When I came back from supper, I undressed Rebekah for a bath and noticed a rash around the back of her neck. I was concerned that it may have been a reaction to one of her medications, so the on-call doctor came to take a look at it. By that time it had spread a little to her chest and tummy. The doctor feels that it is yet another symptom of the virus that Rebekah seems to be fighting off.
Aaron loves his baby sister!
Our nurse tonight was not satisfied with Rebekah's oxygen sats, so she called the respiratory therapist (RT) to get a second opinion. He wanted to see what Rebekah would do off oxygen altogether, so we did a trial run. Rebekah did a great job for about 20 minutes, but then she started struggling to keep her oxygen up where it needed to be. The RT put a nasal cannula on Rebekah on 0.5 liters of oxygen (a really, really small amount).
Rebekah was a little put out with the nasal cannula and had a hard time getting to sleep tonight. However, once she fell asleep, her heart rate and oxygen have been better than we have seen since her admission on Thursday. Her heart rate is in the 110's to 120's (excellent for Rebekah!) and her oxygen sats are back in the low 90's. Her last blood pressure tonight was 77/45 which shows that Rebekah is finally resting well. We are hoping that the extra help of oxygen will allow Rebekah's body to put more energy into fighting off this virus and less time worrying about breathing. We'll see what happens tomorrow!
A little smile for Mommy
Nancy
