Sighs

Today was a day full of big sighs. 

Grandma left us early this morning. SIGH - we miss her a LOT.  She was such a great support, mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.  There is just something about having your mom there that makes everything alright.  Big Sister and I both cried when she left, and Big Sister has been asking for her throughout the day, but Mom will have to do for now.

  

We are blessed to have Dad's sister so close by to help.  SIGH - what a relief.  She and Big Sister get along so well.  With her added help we were able to make it through the day.  Bouncing back between the hospital and the house.  Trying to balance the needs of both children.  Again, I am reminded how much I need the whisperings of the Spirit to help me determine where I need to be and with which child my attention needs to be focused on.  Today, it was Big Sister.  

The biggest sigh? A sigh of relief.  SIGH- Baby Z was transferred from the oscilator ventilator to a normal ventilator.  This was a HUGE step and something we'd been praying for.  This new ventilator will allow him to breath a bit on his own, is the next step to being completely off oxygen, allows for any and all tests to be done which the docs find needful (as of right now they are no longer wanting to do a CT Scan because he is doing so well), and most importantly allows Baby Z to be held.  That is right, I get to hold my baby again!!  It has been over a week and I long for this.  Although he was transferred to the ventilator early this morning and is doing fine they said I had to give him a day before I could hold him.  Tomorrow is going to be a great day.  

Baby Z's stats are great this evening.  Oxygen levels at 24%, Nitric Oxide has been weened to 4 and will be turned down 1 every 8 hours, the pressures on the new ventilator keep going down, and there is talk about starting to ween him from the sedatives and morphine.  His blood oxygen saturations are great and although there is still some off and on with the blood pressure medication all in all he is headed in the right direction.  They removed the IV through his belly button and placed a new Pic-line and IV in his hands - this was a bit of a disappointment since now I am no longer able to hold his hands.  But with this big sigh came the decrease in stress for Mom and Dad, which decreased the adrenalin we've been running on the last week and so we were both hit with a wave of exhaustion.  One more big sigh will be released as we fall into our Tempurpedic beds tonight (who would have thought that the Ronald McDonald house would have such great beds.)