11/3/08 Day 7

Ashlyn is eating a little better today. I have fed her twice, and will give her a bath at 4pm. They took her chest tube out and she is off continuous IVs, to see if she will eat better. So far so good, she has eaten close to her normal at every three hours for me. Her cultures came back positive for infection. They took another culture to see if the antibiotics has fought it off. Her Echo from yesterday showed mild narrowing of the pulmonary and a small residual leak, so it doesn't seem to be getting any worse which is good. Tomorrow they will do another Echo. She has a chest x-ray at 3pm and another in the morning to make sure fluid does not collect. Ashlyn is very smiley today, she also has been cooing and looking at her toys hanging above her. I hope the antibiotics are doing their job and now we are on the upside again. She looks really good for only being seven days post surgery, much better than she did right after. I also changed her diaper and picked her up on my own. It is easier now without the chest tube and continuous IV.

PM
She ate well again, about three ounces which is their goal. She has a 24 hour EKG monitor attached called a halter. After her bath she took a good nap before her next feeding. The pictures below are not great quality because they are from my phone. I will post lots more are the days I already posted an entry for when I get home and download from my phone. Just wanted to share how good she is looking. The doctor said she is clinically doing "very good" :) She is getting back to her normal self, especially in the poopy department, she had three today! Her cry still is not back and they may have a speech therapist come in to do a study. Her noises are getting louder so I think in time her cry will comeback too. There may be damage to the vocal chord nerves from the breathing tube, but that was a risk we needed to take to get her better.