quick update

There's not much change today with Madeleine's medical status. She battled some high heart rates and breathing issues last night and its not entirely clear why. Its probably a combination of her coming off the morphine, being uncomfortable, and struggling with her heart issue. Regardless, after receiving a small amount of morphine this morning at 4AM, she has rested peacefully all day and is breathing at a very low rate. She is on a higher canula setting (they actually switched her to the vapo-therm canula) but this isn't cause for concern-- they're just keeping her comfortable. Additionally, the doctors started feeding yesterday afternoon with a very small amount of pedia-lite-- essentially water with electrolytes. They decided to use Pedia-lite instead of formula or breast milk as they wanted to see how she reacted. After a day of feeding, she appears to be doing well and the doctors are just taking a very slow approach to feeding. They will get a new X-Ray each day and will continue to assess before switching to feeding with breast milk. As stated yesterday, they are in no rush as their goal is "do no harm" right now.

In terms of heart surgery, we're still planning to have surgery in the next few weeks and expect to hear about the exact date for surgery on Monday. While we await this date, we have contacted an external cardiologist to get a second opinion regarding the planned surgery. We don't disagree with the planned course of action. Instead, we just want to make sure that this makes sense as we weigh this very difficult decision.

That's all as far as medical updates are concerned. Here's just a few more specific thank you's and comments:

- Thanks to Mary Kay Rau and Liz Singley for joinging us on the March this past weekend. They braved the nasty weather and we are really appreciative.

- Congratulations to the Kessel family-- our neighbors in West Virginia. Judy had successful back surgery next weekend. FYI-- our goal is to take Madeleine to John Henry Days as our late "Kick-off to summer."

- Thanks again to everyone else for all of your support. We can't say this enough-- your support humbles us and we're eternally grateful.

Have a great day,

Brent and Kirsten