September 13: Day +73

Daddy snuck in some cuddle time with Bella this morning!

Heaveno!

Man, it was a l-o-n-g day today. Arrived at the hospital at 8 am for morning rounds at 8:15, and from the moment we concluded rounds till we left tonight at 9:30, we were doing something with or to Bella. She's gonna sleep for 2 days probably.

Judy, the AMAZING RT who made Bella's new fab headgear FROM SCRATCH...

We changed out her dialysis circuit today, and while she was off Prisma, we switched out her bed for one that has a working scale on it. The scale broke on her other bed over a week ago, and we've been waiting till a circuit change to switch beds. The problem was that the circuit crashed early Friday morning (like 3 am) so we had no interest in doing anything but getting her back on the circuit to minimize more "fluid flooding" on that day. Monday rolls around and it's been 72 hours since a circuit change, which is the optimal time to switch it out and we were all over everybody in the Renal Dept. to make it happen. So, new circuit, new bed, new weight:

14.6 kilos. Yikes.

Her "dry weight," which is how much she 'should' weigh at this point is 11 kilos (they measure in metric in pediatric and neonatal because you need to be able to make smaller divisions than ounces for the little ones). That means she's got just under 8 pounds of water sitting on her. It is mostly from her ribs up to the crown of her head. Bella. has. no. neck.

Bella in her new bed... I swear, she's in there somewhere!

Next up, liver ultrasound. Haven't had one in quite a while, and docs wanted to see how it's doing. Didn't hear a peep from anyone afterwards, so I guess no news is good news.

Bella's buddies and balloon watching over her...

Okay, then it was my turn. I spent the morning, when not holding Bella in the air to switch beds, cutting dressings for a full body line and dressing change. I started her dressings at 2:30 and finished up at about 8:30 tonight. We hung out while she tanked on her second pressure support (you would too if you had the day Bella did), then hit the road. We tried every trick in the book to stimulate her enough through the hour, but she was OUT COLD and not breathing more than 12-16 breaths a minute. That's not gonna cut it; she needs to breathe at least 16-20 to barely pass the test, so I imagine we'll rest in the morning tomorrow, and MAYBE try again in the afternoon or evening.

Fabulous socks of the day!

Lastly, enjoy the portraits that the organization Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep took of us! The pictures are absolutely amazing! Angelique and I can't believe neither of us screwed up the picture of all of us! We are really grateful to Ann Niedermayer for her wonderful work. Thanks, Ann!

God night.