Living on Hospital Time

I have officially transitioned to hospital time.  Similar in form to summer break when you're a teacher (only without the intrinsically carefree component), living in hospital time involves completely losing all notion of day, date and hour.  It is simultaneously agonizingly slow and faster than can be rationally comprehended.

It's hard to believe Josephine is already just over two weeks old.  While we're pleased the doctors have decided to move at more of a conservative speed this time around, both Michael and I are anxious to get Josephine out of the hospital and settled at home.  She's absolutely making progress toward that end.  Over the past several days, Josephine has been weaned from her dopamine and epinephrine (although the epinephrine continues to make an appearance at low doses from time to time.)  The hard chest tube - which was reinserted during the third surgery - has now disappeared, and the soft chest tube was removed yesterday because the stitch holding it in place had loosened and the tube had started to slip out.  The pacer was turned off today and Josephine has continued to breathe over and above the ventilator.  In addition to the standard bounty of monitoring lines (which includes stickers on her head and back to monitor oxygen distribution, wires strapped to her feet to measure temperature, and the red glowy "ET" device - which is now attached to her toe - to measure oxygen saturation), she still has the oral ventilator tube, an ng tube, intercardiac wires, and a belly drain, plus a number of ports from which they can draw blood and administer various medications.  The status of the tubes and wires is in constant flux.  Something is eliminated most every day...so, most every day we're closer to getting out of CICU and into the step down unit.  We're definitely thankful for that.

The biggest struggle over the past few days (aside from my emotional struggle when Josephine breaks out the "Momma, help me" eyes - usually in response to being suctioned, having a diaper changed or passing gas) has been her kidneys.  Apparently, they didn't much like the three surgeries or the high doses of antibiotics, so have decided to rebel a bit.  The doctors have adjusted her nutrition formula in an attempt to lighten the load on her kidneys a little and give them time to recover.  Since extubation (and finally seeing Josephine's face without huge masses of tape stuck everywhere) depends on kidney function improving, we're hoping the change in formula will do the trick.  

As always, thanks so much to all who have supported us over the past couple weeks. Your prayers and thoughts are so appreciated!