Friday/Saturday Update October 19/20, 2013

The last 48 hours have been quite a blur.  I took the children with me to the hospital on Friday. The doctors planned to remove Lenah from the ventilator and they wanted me to be there.  Our friend Allison met us there as we all planned to visit Lenah and then go see the hospital's model train display and play at their playground. Wow. Things did not go as planned. Lenah did not do well at all.  She was struggling and looking like she was drowning. James arrived at the hospital at the worst of her struggle.  He thought we were losing here right then. They had to sedate her and put her on the CPAP machine to help her breathe and after a while she stabilized.  Sallie came to visit and stayed the night with me at the hospital.  She did well through the night on the CPAP.  This morning I was able to hold her again for the first time since September 27th. I was so happy. 

Later in the day they decided to remove the CPAP and try her on high flow nasal canula.

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She did well on that for a while, but then something was not right.  She started breathing too fast and her heart rate was too fast.  They put her back on the CPAP and it seemed to help,  so I went home to be with the family for bedtime.  On my way, home Lenah's nurse and doctor called me because she started to decline again. They asked my permission to re-intubate her.  I was close to home so I called James and we decided to call Allison and asked her if she could come be with the children.  We  headed to the hospital as her doctors were unsure if this decline was from something going very wrong with her intestines.  Her x-rays still look like she has not had a perforation or obstruction in her intestines.  We are all at a loss to explain why she was doing well and then just seemed to go downhill again.  I am so upset.  She was so happy and content being held today and to have another setback like this is just plain awful.  We plan to take the children to visit her again tomorrow as only Edward and Sofia were able to visit her on Friday because of her terrifying episode. Please continue to pray for Lenah.