Kashann and Clan

It's 7 a.m. in the PICU and we made it through our second night. As most of you know I am long winded and I have a spare second so here we go.

We both stayed with her last night since this time I had some notice and found two kind souls (Taylor and Laney) to stay with our 4 children at home. Betzy and Brandon have also been wonderful and are starting out their second day with Marcus. Marcus is fine with his new home and even let Brandon rock him to sleep yesterday for his three hour nap. My Mom hopped on a plane this morning so we should be set for help by tonight.

Yesterday was very brutal for all of us here at the hospital. Things just go back and forth so fast. You go from hearing a team of Dr.'s tell you how she is positively going to recover and then 2 hours later her oxygen support is upped to 80% and your Dr. comes into tell you she is hovering at the 50/50 mark whether she is about to turn for the worse or better. I really didn't like the sound of "intubated" even though the Dr. told me that they totally expect her to come off the ventilator. It was especially hard since her room is situated in the ICU in the same place as Brent's Dad's was and the last time he spoke to him was right before he was intubated.

She had taken a two hour nap in the afternoon and awoke to her lowest numbers ever. Her oxygen saturation was down to 82%, (it was in the mid to lower 90's when we came in) and she was struggling to breathe. We had been asking about repiratory therapy since the night before but nobody had done anything. Brent finally insisted so they came in and starting thumping on her chest and trying to get her to cough up a lung I guess you would say. I just stood against the wall and let Brent help because I was crying too hard. They had her blow on one of those party favors that unrolls when you blow. We were shocked when she couldn't make it even begin to unroll. We worked for a while and after finishing things started slowly improving.

We started sitting her up ourselves (Brent and I) every commercial and getting her to cough for us and blow her toys-they also gave us a pinwheel. She has so little energy but we told her that Grandma is coming and if she wants to play with Grandma she has to do it. This seemed to make a huge difference and before long she had coughed up a huge chunk of mucus along with a little blood. After that she started interacting with us even if it was to yell at us, but at least she was no longer staring off into space. I took a video of her talking to all her sisters on the phone in her little squeaky, weak voice and just let the tears pour down that I was getting to see my sweet Caroline again.

They started giving her Tami-flu after that which is an anti-viral (even though they have almost totally ruled out virus and say this is appearing to be bacterial pneumonia . . . which is good because that means her body will respond to antibiotics).

Well the side effects are crazy dreams they said, so she has been squeaking stuff out here and there that don't make any sense. Her voice is hard enough to understand right now and when she starts talking nonsense we finally just have to nod our head and say yes Caroline. Right about this time, they had to draw her blood out of her IV. When they put the IV in they told her this was her magic button and now that she had the owie she wouldn't need any more because all of her shots just went through the magic button. So you can imagine how horrible it was when the nurse dislodged the magic button after pushing on it for five minutes to squeeze out blood, and we had to break the news to her that we would be needing to put another one in.

We all got a lot of sleep last night though in little increments and overall she is doing so much better. She has color back in her cheeks and seems to be fighting rather than yesterday morning when she was in such a daze.

Still have a long ways to go though since she still is at 80% oxygen and her numbers are staying above the worrisome mark but not even close to letting her breathe on her own totally.
I have gone from panic prayers to constant prayers of gratitude. She is still so sick, weak and would definitely be dead if we weren't at the hospital. But I am very hopeful now, and very grateful. Who knows what today will bring but the nurse just came in and told me it was amazing that she made it through the night without being intubated and so I am just going to hang on to that and know that she is doing great. Brent thinks it's cause we have been stretching her lungs with her excercises. She can now blow the roll up toy most of the way out and hold it for the count of 10. I can't understand why they don't stress this more and make sure it gets done. Any kid without someone constantly working with them would probably have been intubated.

Thanks for all the phone calls, comments, and inclusion in your family prayers. I went home last night for 2 hours to get the kids into bed, wash some sheets for the sleepover, and did the whole thing with one ear to the phone talking to wonderful people who have really helped me get through this. And for those who have just prayed and haven't gotten through, don't worry I haven't had time to talk to ya. I know you all have stuff going on in your own lives and it means a lot that you have also made time to worry about our daughter.