January 12, 2005: The cardiologists (a new "team" we have involved) realized that based on her
Echocardiogram that her heart is not pumping as hard as it should. They decide give her some additional medicines to
dilate her vessels, and adjust some things in her treatment.
January 13, 2005: The heart medications are working fine, and her color has pinked up some.
The pathologists (another new group of doctors) did tests on her placenta which was taken after her birth to determine if
it had any reasons that her heart function wasn't working as well. Sure enough, they determined that the placenta
had been warding off a major bacterial infection, and that it caused her heart to beat harder against it while she was in
the womb because it was a "high pressure placenta" (essentially in doing its job to keep the infection away from Theresa,
it wasn't circulating the as easily) So far, she hasn't shown any signs of developing an infection, but they decide
to continue her on her antibiotics just to be safe.
January 14, 2005: Today, Theresa had a follow-up Echocardiogram. The Cardiologists sais
that her heart condition looked "slightly improved." Tim and I will take any news with the word "improved" in it.
Baby steps, but still progress in the right direction.
January 15, 2005: She has started to move more often. Mostly, she lifts her right leg, or
on occasion, she will put both fists in the air - sort of a slow "startle relfex." They have her heavily sedated on
morphine, so when she starts to come out of it is when she moves the most. The doctors, nurses, and profusionsts don't
like the movement, because it tends to lower her -oxygen levels and affects the ECMO circuit and her readings, but Tim and
I enjoy seeing her react like a normal infant. Tim loves to stand over her and let Theresa hold his finger - she has
quite a grip! It is sad that we are limited to bonding with our daughter by touching only her hand, nose, foot and forehead
due to all the tubes and wires.
The pump on the ECMO circuit developed a squeak in it. Tim noticed it immediately, even before the perfusionist
heard it. Luckily, their shift change was taking place soon, so they changed it out. Theresa was off the circuit
for less than 1 minute, and her lung didn't do too poorly, but her heart rate and pressure lowered significantly, which showed
us that it is still very weak.
January 16, 2005: No major updates to report. As Theresa becomes more and more tolerant
of the morphine and other sedatory drugs, she "wakes up" more often. When they changed her diaper today, she opened
her eyes, and made a (silent) "cry face." Her levels and sats are still looking good.
January 17, 2005: Another follow-up Echocardiogram. Based on her results, and the fact that
her levels and sats have been good for a couple of days, they are planning on turning down the volume flow of her ECMO circuit
to see if she can be "weaned off" of it. This is earlier than we expected, but a great sign overall!!!!
Her personality and attitude are already being expressed. Theresa woke up today, and started moving a lot, and
silently crying repeatedly. She was mad about something, and wanted the world to know! Though it upset the nurses
and they had to sedate her heavily, I wanted to laugh at the fact that she is such a fighter.
Since things are going so well, Tim is going to go to work tomorrow to catch up on things so he can continue to be off
during the rest of the week.
