Making Progress

Cecelia brought Eloise a puppy.

Look at my cool shades

I am home from the hospital and adjusting back to normal life, well at least more normal than hospital life. Trey went up to see Eloise this morning and get the morning report from the doctor. The doctor seemed to be very happy with her progress and even told Trey that he felt that she has turned a corner in her progress. With that being said there has still been a lot going on over the night time. All which the doctor said is normal and expected for preemies. For one she has been having episodes of Apnea and Bradycardia. Apnea is a pause in breathing of more than 15 seconds which causes bradycardia a drop in heart rate. She had 20 of these episodes yesterday so they put her on caffeine. Since given the caffeine she had only had 2. They said this is very good and to be expected. They also said that since she has been given the caffeine she seems more relaxed in her breathing. The caffeine is said to help stimulate the area of the brain that regulates breathing allowing her to relax in her breathing. She may go home still on caffeine in which we just give it to her during feedings. It is not something that will keep her from coming home but she has to have no episodes of Apnea and bradycardia before she would be released. Her bilirubin levels also went up from 6.9 to 10 which caused her to be jaundice. She is now under lights that will help to remove the extra bilirubin from her body. They also stated that her sugar levels are at 50 which they like to see them between 50-80. Anything under 40 causes concern. So she is at the low level but still not to much concern. They think she might just run low and are checking her often to see. The doctor wants to see her UA IV taken out so they are working on trying to get a regular IV in. He also wanted her to try eating today with 3cc of food every 3 hours. When we visited this afternoon they had not yet been successful with the regular IV so she still had her UA. They had fed her and she had taken the feeding well even sucking out of a nipple. This was very exciting. They feed her every three hours at 3,6,9 and 12. We are allowed to come up and feed her at these times. I am planning to go up tonight at 9pm to feed her. We also brought Cecelia up to see her again. This time without her oxygen hood on. We stopped at the gift shop so Cecelia could pick out a gift for Eloise. She brought her a stuffed puppy which ended up being the same size as Eloise. Cecelia was not to sure what to think of Eloise. Our friends Jill and Mike also met us up there and were able to meet Eloise for the first time. It was a good day for Eloise and I am very excited to go back up tonight and feed her. Every step is one step closer to her coming home.