Doing So Good

Wednesday March 19
8:45 a.m.
Mike just called over to the NICU to find out how Cayman did through the night. It was such good news!!! Neurosurgery was by to check on her this morning and said she looked better in regards to her puffiness. They ordered for her Morphine (pain medicine) to be decreased some more. Also ordered for her feedings to be increased. They'll continue her feedings through her G-tube (belly tube). No news yet about taking her off her breathing tube. I have to believe we're close though!!!

12:00 p.m.
Cayman is doing so good!! The tube that went into her stomach through her mouth was taken out today. They are giving her a continuous feed of breast milk. 1 cc per hour...so a very very small amount continuously drips into her belly through her G-tube. They did a "practice" breathing test on her where they turn the ventilator to manual breathing. She breathes on her own and if she is having any troubles the machine detects that and kicks back on. She did fine with that..taking every breath all on her own. Then after that they drew blood to test her gas levels (oxygen, etc) and those numbers looked great. So the plan is sometime today to take the breathing tube out!! We may get to hold her today!! It's been a week and two days since we held her last! Daddy and I are so ready...as is everyone else. I don't think anyone else has been able to hold her yet...just Daddy and I.

4:00 p.m.
Cayman's breathing tube came out this afternoon!! She's breathing on her own perfectly! It's been such a happy day for us with so many things going in a positive direction.

She's had some visitors today: Grandma Stamm (Mike's mom), and his sister (Sam), and our Pastor (Dave).

7:00 p.m.
Earlier this afternoon, Mike and I sat in on an infant massage class. I am so excited to massage my baby. I have to wait yet though. She has so much stimulation going on with the tubes, healing, and the NICU is actually not always a very quiet place with all the machines that beep. I've wondered when Cayman is home and crying, if the way to calm her down is to make beeping noises instead of singing her a lullaby. I've been doing some massage on her, just not a lot. It's really tough with all the wires and tubes she has. But when she had all that swelling, and once we found out she did not have a blood clot I went to massaging any part of her arms and legs I could get to, to help her circulation so that the swelling would go down. Being a massage therapist, I am so ready to love on my baby through massage!