Today Was a Good Day

Bailey slept great last night. She woke up about every 2 hours asking what time it was, but then she'd fall right back to sleep. She sat on the side of the bed this morning to eat her breakfast - she sent me downstairs for cheesy potatoes and a banana. She also stood up and stepped on the scale and she's back down to 86 pounds!!!! The 2 kilos (4 pounds) she gained yesterday disappeared. She has little skinny feet again. When she got back into bed after breakfast, her BP bottomed out again and her heart rhythm started looking weird. So, in the matter of minutes, they had a whole team of people in here taking chest x-rays, an EKG and an echo, and discussing the results. It is always quite stressful when a whole team of people are gathered in the room. They were talking amongst themselves and I was trying my best to listen and capture everything they were saying, but it all basically went over my head. They made some adjustments to her medication, and attributed her rhythm issues to her pacemaker, I think (at least they said she wasn't in flutter) . . . and said her echo looked better than it did yesterday. By the time Dr. T came in early this afternoon, her numbers were looking a lot better. In fact, he was pleased with her numbers. He told Bailey he still can't guarantee she won't have to have a VAD (in case this isn't just post-pump recovery), but he was pleased with the way things looked today.

She slept quite a bit today - so much so that I was concerned that she just wasn't feeling well, but around 5:00 this afternoon she wanted to sit up and sent me to get dinner. And she was sitting on the side of her bed for about 2 hours. She smiled and laughed and enjoyed a visit from Aunt Cindy and Uncle David. Several times today, she has just wanted to stand up for really no reason other than to just stretch her legs. She is using me and her nurse less and less to move around and stand up. She still needs help to sit up and to lay back down, but improving every day. She got her pain ball removed today. That was a really cool invention -- it's about the size of a baseball and it's filled with lidocaine. It had 2 wires attached to it and ran underneath her skin on either side of the incision on her chest, and it continuously fed numbing medication to her incision. It worked great! But you could really tell when it ran out - she's had to ask for morphine quite often. She was afraid to have the ball removed because she thought the wires would hurt coming out, but Juanita had them removed before Bailey even knew it. And the dressing change went much, much easier and quicker today. With each wire or tube that's removed, her state of mind gets a little more at ease. She'll be dancing the halls when the foley cath and her chest tubes are out.

And they say her rhythm is still doing strange things. But it looks awfully smooth and steady to me. I don't know what the rhythm issues are all about or how serious they are, but it's not flutter.

So, although we again don't know what tomorrow might bring us, today was a good day. If the trend continues, tomorrow should be an even better day - hopeful that the "numbers" will stabilize even more.

Tom and the girls came to visit and I heard all about their shopping trip. It was a huge success. Josie got her black pants and black shoes, and Rissy even walked away with a new pair of shoes. He did good.

Well, we won't be home for Thanksgiving, but Bailey and I have already made plans to watch the entire Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. It's been many, many years since I've seen it because I'm usually elbow-deep in baking and cooking, so that will give us something to look forward to. And my family is going to deliver us a Thanksgiving meal, so we'll be well taken care of. Josie and Riss get to spend the day and night with Aunt Vickie.

Thank you for your continued prayers. They are the best that you could give us right now. Have a happy Thanksgiving week and enjoy the short work week!

Love to you all,
Angie