September 18: Day +78

Heaveno!

Well, it wasn't one of Bella's banner days (or Arsenal's for that matter, but that's another story). We had the toughest time keeping Bella's blood pressure out of the toilet today. If we stimulated her, we could get it up, but if we let her be... well, we saw 40's over 30's at one point today.

Not good.

The attending ICU doc was a little gloom and doom with me today, but we'll have a new doc Monday, so I just nodded along and tried to ignore the ominous comments about what happens if Bella doesn't respond... save it. Bella has 4 different sedation medications running through her system 24/7. I convinced the ICU doc to begin weaning the ketamine off. We also have methadone, ativan, and precedex running. We really don't need the ketamine. Plus, ketamine can raise blood pressure in most patients, BUT in her case there is a very probable situation where it is causing the opposite effect. Without getting in too deep about why, suffice to say that we've began to notice that the ketamine has made her BP dip, not surge. So, out goes the ketamine ASAP. We can't just turn it off, but at least we began the move to getting it out of Bella's body.

They were making pillow cases for the patients today... Ali loves lady bugs, and well, the butterflies made it a no-brainer!

So, again, the goal is to keep Bella "propped up" on pressers until we can began to roll off most of her sedation. We think we will begin this process on Monday. We will also get to change her dressings on the trach on Monday as well. Oh yeah, we'll be changing the Prisma circuit on Monday, too. Oh yeah, they may want an MRI of her liver while she's off the circuit... on Monday. Think Monday's gonna be a little busy?

Ali in her Mermaid Barbie comstume...

Tomorrow, we hit downtown Minneapolis for the first time as a family! I can't believe it. We've been here since the beginning of June and it's the first time we're venturing downtown together. We have tickets to the Twins game, and we're going to hit the sculpture garden downtown as well. Should be fun! Also, hopefully Chelsea FC in England will lose or draw tomorrow, and Manchester United will lose to Liverpool! HUGE RIVALRY there. We (Arsenal) we lucky to draw today after an abysmal performance, so we need the other big boys to choke as well. Alright alright, that's enough sports talk for one day!

Can you say, "ROCK STAR?"

One day, Bella will look back and say, "Yeah, I was born with this rare skin condition, but when they brought me home from the hospital, it went away."

God night.