Monday, September 17, 2007

Day 55 - Monday September 17

There were no big changes over the weekend with Kathryn. She is off of her antibiotic, her Fentinel is still a little reduced,and she is only taking the steroid once a day right now. She has maybe one or two more days of that and they will reassess to see if they continue them. They were able to take her arterial line out from her left hand yesterday since she is only doing labs every 12 hours now, so they will go back to heel sticks. If they have to increase her lab frequency, they will do another art line, but not for now. She also had her IV removed from her right hand yesterday too because it was running slow, so when she needs her next blood transfusion, she will get a new one of those. But for today, she has no "equipment" on either hand!!! She maintained around 2lbs, 2ozs to 2lbs, 3 ozs over the weekend, but she looks like she is losing some more of the fluid too.

They were talking about starting gut priming late last week or over the weekend, but they decided to hold off. There were two babies in the NICU this weekend that were very sick, so the doctors were a little overwhelmed with their care. We don't know who those babies were, but please pray for healing for sick babies in the Brookwood NICU.

We went yesterday to Montgomery for a shower for my brother and his wife. They are expecting a baby boy in October and received so many wonderful gifts for Reed. Kathryn could fit in one arm or one leg of some of the outfits they received for him!!

Well, better get to work!!!

Please pray for Kathryn.

Kelly

2 comments:

Andrew and Lauren Hess said...

Dear Ellis Family,

My name is Lauren Hess. I heard of your blog from our friends KC and Renata Decker. My husband Andrew is fraternity brothers with Greg's brother Eric. I just read through your entire blog and I can say that I know exactly how you are feeling. 5 months ago I delivered the two sweetest twin boys, Carson and Cooper. We have been on the exact same roller coaster ride you are on right now. Carson was first, he was 1 lb 15 oz and Cooper was 2 lb 1 oz. I have seen both my boys hooked up to so many machines giving them air, medicine, blood, etc. I felt the same helplesness that you described in one of your posts. As a mother we are supposed to fix things and make it better and when we can't do that it is the worst pain to deal with.

My sweet Cooper was always sicker from the beginning. After 40 days of fighting so hard we found out that his entire intestinal system had NEC. He would never be able to feed and grow. My husband and I had to make the decision to let him go and be free of tubes, needles, ventalators, and pain. He is now a happy baby looking down on us watching his brother get bigger every day.

Carson came home after 85 days in the NICU and so far he is doing amazinly well. Last night he weighed 10 lbs 6 oz! We keep our fingers crossed and our prayers strong that he will continue to amaze us all.

I'm sorry for the long post, but I just wanted you to know our story and know that I will continue to check on your family every day and pray that I see the post that tells us you are all safe at home. Stay strong. We are all with you.

Lauren Hess
www.andrewandlaurenhess.blogspot.com

tennis said...

My daughter Lauren Hess put your blogspot on here website. I also read your story and it is very similar to my daughter's. I will never forget when they told us to not get to excited on the good days or to down on the bad days. They said it would be a rollercoaster ride and it was. Soon your good days will out number the tough days and you will have your little girl home where she belongs with her family.
I will send your story out to all our people and they will put your family on their prayer list.
You feel helpless as a parent and I felt helpless as a grandmother watching my child as I could do nothing to help her except be there for support. The days are long in the NIC unit so please take care of yourself it is easy to get emotionally and physically drained.
We became so close to the nurses and doctors in the NIC unit they were our family for 3 months.
Our thoughts are with you and we will continue to pray for your family.