Friday morning update

Well, we have the tube out of Julianna’s throat. And while he was at it, Dr. Burny also removed the NG tube (nasal-gastric) and the feeding tube, knowing that as soon as she wakes up, she’ll be ripping them out anyway. 🙂

Her numbers really didn’t justify coming off the ventilator, not quite anyway. But the trouble is this: as long as she’s deeply sedated, she needs virtually no respiratory support. Every time they started to wean her from sedation, however, she’d start fighting and they’d have to turn the numbers back up. So he decided to just try taking her off, thinking that it’s her thrashing and fighting the tubing that is causing her to need extra support. So we’re on a trial run right now.  She’s breathing far, far too quickly, but the rate has dropped a bit, at least. She was taking 120 breaths a minute and now she’s down around 90, so that’s an improvement, even if it is still 2-3 times higher than it should be.

The cultures came back and she has strep…uh…well, some sort of strep something bug that causes pneumonia. For what that’s worth.

Everyone has offered help, and we really want to take you up on it; we’re just trying to figure out what we can ask for. Prayers, obviously, go without saying. Someone’s offered to mow our lawn, which is great, and someone else is bringing Christian dinner at the hospital tonight. Those who are local and feel that Julianna knows them could help by sitting with her in the hospital for a couple hours, so Christian and I can spend some time with Alex and get our own house clean. We have a week’s worth of dishes piled up on the cabinet…which, since we’ve been at work and the hospital all week, is not as much as it would be on a normal week, but it’s still disgusting.

Anyway, I’d like to echo Christian’s “THANK YOU” from last night. You all are Christ in action to us. I’d also like to ask you to pray for a 5-week-old baby with RSV, whose survival is in question. I can’t imagine losing a child, so please join me in praying for this family and this child. God, please give her back to her family, as You gave Julianna back to us when she was in the same situation at the same age.

P.S.–as of noon, the doctor says we’re not leaving the ICU till after the weekend, so we’re still going to be in the hospital next work week.