Progress Update

Shortly after the posting that Faith was doing better and would be transferred back to Hutzel, she regressed some. Yesterday afternoon she was placed on a oscillating ventilator. Her breathing was becoming labored, oxygen levels were dropping, she wasn't urinating enough, and they believe she has an infection. Xrays also noted she has atelectasis in her lungs. That is essentially collapse of part of her lungs. I have attached a link to describe it. The oscillating ventilator is more gentle on the babies and should help open up her lungs. The latest xray last evening showed improvement in the atelectisis and her urine output has also improved. The cultures are not back to determine if she has an infection, but they have put on antibiotics just to be safe. She will likely be at Children's for a while.

Ashleigh is doing well. Her feeding amounts have been increased again. She will hold our fingers and open her eyes. We may actually get to hold her today. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Thank You

We would like to thank everyone for their prayers, concerns, and well wishes. We sincerly appreciate it.

Thank you

Michelle and Todd

Tuesday August 5th

Good news for Faith!!!! Her chest tube fell out last night and they put the gauze with vaseline on. She is doing well so they are transferring her back to Hutzel today :) They did a chest x-ray and it shows some grayed areas on both lungs. The Dr. isn't concerned however we will have to find out more! My guess is she will continue to improve with a more quiet atmosphere. We think all the commotion at Children's stressed her out.

Ashleigh is still doing great. At 2:00 p.m. they uped her feeding to 6cc's every 3 hours. The nurse said she even had both of her eyes open today! She weighs 2lbs. 8 ozs. and is having a good day!

Michelle

Monday August 4th

Ashleigh is still doing very well. Tomorrow is her last day of her antibiotic for the staph infecton. She self extibated 2 days ago and was on CPAP for 20 hours. She was having a hard time breathing on her own so they put her back on the ventilator yesterday morning. They have increased her feedings to 5cc's every 3 hours starting 2:00 a.m. tomorrow. She opened her eyes a couple of times while I was visiting today. The nurse took an awesome picture of her that I will see if we can get onto the site for everyone to see. Her weight is 1100 grams or 2 lbs. 6-1/2 ozs.

Faith's chest tube fell out this morning however the gas built up in her lungs again so they had to put the tube back in. Most likely she will have it for another couple days. She is now only on medication for her blood pressure. They are planning on starting her on 1cc of breastmilk tomorrow. She was less puffy today and seemed to be resting well. She continues to be fisty and doesn't liked to be messed with. Daddy definitely has the touch with Faith. Her heart rate goes down and she is very content when he is touching her. She is already Daddy's girl!!!!!

Love to all!
Michelle

Videos added

A couple of videos were added this morning. For some reason the link does not work. They can be seen @ www.youtube.com/spartan39green. Sorry I will try to get the link working again

Todd

Friday August 1st Second Update

Faith is continuing to improve! They are lowering her blood pressure meds and plan to take out her chest tube tomorrow. Once the tube comes out Todd and I may finally get to hold her. It would be a good stress relief for all 3 of us! She had more pee pee diapers. Now we just need to work on getting her off the ventilator and back on breastmilk. Faith's weight is pretty inaccurate at this point since they pumped her with so much fluid.

Ashleigh is still doing well. She now weighs 2 lbs 5 oz! She is on 2cc's of breastmilk every 3 hours and was resting very comfortably today.

Love
Michelle

Update Friday Aug 1st

Faith has improved in some ways, but still has issues with her kidneys. Yesterday a nephrologist was brought in to look at Faith. She is in renal failure. Her kidneys have not been functioning properly. She has started peeing more since midnight. That is encouraging. The doctor said she is still in renal failure but if she continues to pee he is hopeful she will get through this. In fact she has peed enough where he does not need to see her anymore. This has been a tough time for us as we could see she was very sick. She looks much better this morning. She even looked at me.

Ashleigh is hanging in there, but she is still intibated. They still have to suction a lot of secretions from her respiratory tract from the infection. She's eating and gaining weight.