When You’re Up, You’re Up

Hooray for good weekends! Nyana continued her upswing this weekend and has left her Dad and I feeling relieved, optimistic, and more in love with her than ever before. After a few consecutive days of weight loss, she’s been packing it on for the past few days, at a rate of about a hundred grams a day, and now weighs in at a hefty 1,880 grams. Folks, we have a four pound baby. They’re even going to stop fortifying her milk, ’cause she’s almost starting to look a bit pudgy.

As she comes up on her weight, she’s coming down on her morphine and oxygen. She’s now on half the morphine she was five days ago, and at the rate they’re weaning her, our little addict will hopefully be clean by Tuesday. Once she’s off the drugs, the IV in her arm can come out, and she can start wearing clothes again. She’s the only girl in our nursery, and she’s been in nothing but a diaper for almost a week. Her father is not impressed.

On the ventilator, I’ve been happily watching with every shift change as all the bad numbers go down and the good numbers go up. She even enjoyed an hour out of her solarium with me today, my first cuddle with her in a week. There had been rumours on Friday night about a possible extubation today, which I’m glad I didn’t get excited about because it didn’t happen. But she’s on the right track now; where last week she needed 85—100% oxygen to barely keep her saturations in check, she’s now at about 60% and satting high. For those of you not living in a NICU, this means things are good.

The green line is heart rate, the white is respiratory rate, and the blue is the oxygen saturation. We spend a lot of time staring at that blue line.

And as if her little victories aren’t enough for one weekend, I got to show her off twice in as many days! A dear friend of mine from high school was in town, and visited the NICU to meet Nyana. And I was pleasantly surprised by an impromptu visit from an old colleague of mine. Steve, if you’re reading, thanks again for the gift. It’s already hanging above her crib.

Coming home from the hospital yesterday afternoon, I texted Don to ask if we needed anything. He asked me check a few places along the way for a pumpkin he could carve during the hockey game. (For those who don’t know, The Karen & Donners Show has always had a special Halloween episode that includes the elaborate carving of two or three pumpkins each. We were bummed when we realized we wouldn’t have the time this year.) Unable to carve a pumpkin, Don pulled out the construction paper and opted for an afternoon of arts and crafts instead. Nyana’s nurses appreciated it.

I want to hope that we won’t be decorating this same space for Christmas, but I know that she’s the only one who can really decide when she’s ready to come home. And until then, we’ll just keep on hoping for days like this.