Continued Improvement

All,

I'm at work but wanted to put out another post showing how well Madeleine is doing. Here are the stats:

- The infection is on the run. Her white blood count is down to 30 (from 45) yesterday and further evidence (the doctor called them "bands") show that the infection as a whole is definitely decreasing.
- The ostomy is working as Madeleine continues to have output into the bag-- about 3-4 cc's every three hours. This isn't huge but it is more than she used to get out of the bag, and she's not eating right now. As far as eating is concerned, the surgeons cleared her to eat today-- the typical time frame is 7-10 days. The neonatologists think this is way too agressive-- we're inclined to agree-- but her output indicates that feeding isn't far off.
- Her blood pressure remains stable and Madeleine continues to be weaned from dopamine. At last check, she was at 5 on the high concentration. The doctors were debating just pulling the dopamine or switching her to a low concentration and weaning all the way to 1. The high concentration doesn't go any lower than 5.)
- The ventilator is at low settings and Madeleine appears capable of breathing without it. The doctors may choose to keep her on the ventilator for another day just to be safe. The main concern is that the ventilator makes sure that Madeleine breathes deeply. Without the vent, the concern may be that any remaining pain from her belly may cause her to breathe shallower than she normally would. Regardless of when she is weaned, she is breathing over the vent (faster than the vent settings) and this bodes well for when they do remove the tube.

That's all for right now. Kirsten and I are of two minds. First, we are extremely encouraged by Madeleine's recovery and feel that Madeleine's strength is absolutely astonishing. The fact that she's had two major surgeries in a week and has fought off a major infection is awesome. At the same time, given all of the ups and downs of the past few weeks, we're trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves. Simply put: we're as happy as can be right now but we're still taking it one day at a time. At some point over the weekend, we hope that Madeleine can begin feeding again and at that point, we'll start to set some benchmarks for her.

That's all for now-- please keep the prayers and support going-- they're obviously helping. Thanks,

Brent and Kirsten