Posted Apr 5, 2008 8:43am

McKenzie was extabated for about half of yesterday. They had her head in a little tent to maintain the higher concentration of nitrogen she needs to keep the oxygenated blood going to her periphery, but that was not enough. Last night, they had to put her back on the ventilator. Her doctor did tell us that we should take this extabation as a good sign. The last time they removed the breathing tube, she had problems with her heart handling it. This time, it was merely the oxygenation problem. This means she has improved and there is a medical answer to her current problem. If she still had heart problems when coming off the ventilator, then the doctor said the fix would probably have to have been surgical. We are grateful to keep the number of surgeries to a minimum.

While she was off the ventilator, it was nice to hear her scream once again. It wasn't very loud since her throat was scratchy from the breathing tube, but she definitely knows how to use it. She was sucking on the pacifier like crazy! That is a great sign. They have warned us over and over again that babies on breathing tubes forget how to suck and need to go to occupational therapy to learn to eat again. Hopefully, this will be one less step we have to take because it could extend her hospital stay.

We hope everyone enjoys the weekend! I haven't listened to the news in forever (it's true, the news junky has no idea what is going on), but it looks gorgeous outside---nice and sunny.
Mel