We have Gloomy Sunday, Manic Monday, Ruby Tuesday… what do we have for Wednesday? (The “Happy Days” theme song does not count).

So. Yesterday was an improvement compared to Monday, but I don’t know if I could say the same for today. Those fevers that I mentioned before have continued to come and go. I held her yesterday and when we put her back, her temp was 101.3 under one arm – and 103 under the other (that’s the arm that was against me). It’s very rarely been below 99 degrees and usually hovers around the high 99’s or low 100’s, but occasionally spikes. She was having suuuuuuuuch trouble sleeping yesterday; she would fall asleep for maybe 15, 20 seconds and then startle herself awake. I had thought of asking for a weighted blanket or swaddling her, which used to calm her in the NICU, but figured that it would overheat her, which wouldn’t be helpful. Then Gran Sharon was standing with her at bedside and noticed that even just holding down her legs securely seemed to be enough to calm her down and let her sleep. Bingo! We asked for a beanbag, another NICU item that helped to calm Leah sometimes, but they didn’t have any in PICU and weren’t familiar with the specific item to which I was referring. So I went down to NICU and they were awesome and gave me something similar (since they didn’t have any of the ones I had in mind). We placed the weight across her legs and within minutes she was sleeping. Yay!

Today is not so great. They still haven’t been able to decrease her oxygen levels and let her breathe a bit more on her own. They tried to go a little lower yesterday and she was desatting, so they had to increase it again. I think they did the same with breaths per minute today, increasing it to give her a little bit more support. We’ll see how it goes! She has been coughing all morning (which the nurses say could actually be a good thing and mean she is getting out some of the secretions in her lungs), and also seems very tired and less alert. There was a small area in her lungs that concerned the surgeons so they are taking her downstairs to get a better x-ray than what they can do at bedside. A doctor from Infection Control came in to examine her and after his assessment he said he thinks she is feverish because her lungs are a little deflated from being intubated and then extubated and then re-intubated and then re-extubated, so she’s just having to work really hard to breathe. He doesn’t necessarily think there is an underlying infection. But they will make sure, and are also taking blood and throat cultures and starting anti-biotics just to be safe. They are also screening for calcium deficiency because she keeps having tremors in her sweet little chin. Poor little love.

Will keep you updated on the esophagram when we have more news!

BTW – the t-shirts are in! And they are ADORABLE! LOVE.

This is the little sweetheart this morning. She looks so tired.

This was yesterday. She looks pretty tired here too, but we had some nice snuggles.

BabyPie yesterday when she was a tiny bit more awake.

Look who tweeted for Leah!

Look how cute!!!!!