Looking Up Again

Rebecca's night last night and today was stable.  It is amazing to see how her numbers (blood pressure, o2 sats, heart rate) have improved since getting up to the CICU.  It shows that she has been moved to a place that can better treat her with medications they have up here.  You can tell that everyone knows what they are doing and really works as a team.  She is on room air and sat's are in the mid 80's, heart rate is in the 150's, and blood pressures are better than they have been in weeks.
  
The physicians are still trying to put together the pieces to figure out what symptoms started first, illness symptoms or heart failure symptoms.  We had one doctor this morning feeling that since her numbers have leveled out almost immediately after putting her on the medicines up here, that she is not sepsis but having heart failure.  Then we have another doctor that still thinks she has an illness but still uncertain at this time what that illness is.  The cardiologists will be talking to the surgeons to see when Rebecca is ready for her procedure.  The cardiologist feels that she really needs to get her procedure soon because of her heart failure.  That timing is somewhat dependent on her infection recovery.  He was guessing maybe doing it in the next couple weeks.  All of this seems good as we will hopefully be on the road to recovery but also very scary.  I learned awhile ago that the procedure is not just a regular cardiac cath but something more complicated since she has both pulmonic stenosis and atresia.  


At evening rounds they decided to continue the antibiotics because they still think she was/is infected with something. They are doing another blood test tomorrow that gives a pretty good indication if she is infected. The last one she had was the 13th and it was a pretty positive indication. They also decided to begin a lasix drip that will make Rebecca pee the tissue fluid out which will make her look much better.


Joanna is doing so well.  They took her feeding tube out of her mouth and put it with the nasal cannula.  You can now see her entire face.  Here are some pictures we took tonight.  Notice she has a dimple in her chin - just like her daddy!


Thank you all for the prayers.  I am confident that we will pull through this and she will continue getting better.  My sister-in-law shared this verse on her blog, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."  Matthew 11:24  I will not allow negative thoughts to enter my head.  My girls will be coming home with me!!  


Both grandmas came to visit the girls today and got to both hold Joanna for a while. They of course loved the experience. They also hauled a ton of breast milk back home like a couple of moonshine bootleggers, hidden in coolers in the back of the vehicle. I forgot to tell the guys at the station, that is what my mom has been using to make those cookies we love so much! - (Brandon)