August 1, 2009

A step in the right direction......

Evening of August 1, 2009



Just wanted to update everyone on Jenna's status. Today they began weaning her ventilator, she began at assistance of 25 breaths per minute and is now down to 16. She is still dong what they call "riding the vent", which means that she is still letting the machine do the work for her. Her numbers (bp, pulse, oxygen) are still maintaining in safe range to indicate that she is tolerating the weaning of the machine. So, the goal is to have her number be to 10 or 12 by the morning and hopefully pull the vent at that time. The attending doctor said that if she is not ready at that point, they will wait and attempt on Monday, to not be too disappointed if we are not able to pull the vent. At this point, the nitric oxide for her lungs is to the lowest level and was to be stopped this evening at 11pm. When we left, she will tolerating it at this level, so hopefully it will be gone by the morning. Throughout the day, they continued to give her Versed, Morphine and Fentnyl to help keep her sedated so that she will not pull out her tube from moving around so much in the bed. Tonight they are to stop the Fentnyl and Versed sedatives and begin a more fast acting sedative. The reason is for when they do decide to pull her vent, she will wake up quickly. They are going to continuously run this medicine and when they are ready they will stop it and she should wake up within a half hour. This is so she will begin breathing well immediately after the tube is pulled. This evening when shift changed, the evening respiratory therapist was concerned about her vent tube because since she moved so much through the day, it caused it to come out a little. She was concerned that it would not last through the morning, so she decided to re-tape the area. In order to keep Jenna calm they gave her a paralytic medicine which keeps her completelt still and another dose of sedative. This was so she did not pull and move alot during this process. She did well and did not move, but the medicine was out of her within 15 minutes because she was already moving again. So, we decided to let her rest for the evening and come back to the hotel. Her CICU score of improvement only went down to 84 today, but she drop a lot once she is off Nitric and the vent. Cross our fingers. Her attending doctor told us today, that if we would have told her that she would be doing this well today on Thursday after surgery he would have told us that we were crazy, but she has improved so well. Way more than they expected. We are still trying to get into the Ronald McDonald house, but no luck. Hopefully next week. For those who have been asking, the address to the hospital for cards, etc. is Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center 3333 Burnet Avenue Rm. B655 Cincinnati, OH45229. Even when Jenna moves to the regular floor, they will still transfer her mail to her new room. We will keep everyone posted on her status tomorrow, hopefully we will continue to receive good news. Thanks for the love, support and prayers.

Love, Jenny Justin and Jenna

3 comments:

  1. Giving thanks for her progress thus far. We will continue to pray for Jenna as well as the family.
    Sending hugs across the miles
    Love
    Mike and Linda

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  2. Prayer does make a difference. God is watching over our precious girl. We praise God for his work thus far. Thanks for keeping updates.
    Love,
    Jo, Don, & Seth

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  3. I am praying that all is going well. Let me know what else I can do.
    Roberta Wilson,PC

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