off the vent!

here's Kaia this morning when I woke up (nurse Jackie put the cute hat that auntie Jen bought on her head)


And here's Kaia now! She's catchin' flies.

Oh, she's a happy girl with no tube down her throat! We had a giggling session. She smiled and smiled!




What a great day! I mean, she woke up.....wait....I woke up this morning to Kaia still sleeping. That NEVER happens. Kaia doesn't sleep much. But she was zonked, and she slept almost the whole day! I think she was saving the energy so she could successfully come off of the vent. Let me say it again, she NEVER sleeps and she slept. It allowed me time to go get a shower, then the tests started. We had a nice break when Kate came to visit. She brought a bag of goodies from whole foods, and I think that was the healthiest food I've/we've eaten in a month. Thank you Kate! What a great surprise. The food was delicious! We got to visit for about 10 minutes or so before the next test started. Kaia had a few exams/ultrasounds/cameras in her lungs...to see if her lung function would support her. She passed all of them, so out came the tube. She's now 6 hours extubated and is still doing well. She's got a lot of secretions that need to be suctioned until she learns to cough. But for a girl who's been intubated most of her life, she's doing really well. Let's all hope and pray that her feeds stay in her belly and don't get thrown up and seep into her lungs again. she threw up last night when her tube was still in, so we now have her on zantac for her reflux issues, so hopefully she will keep it down. Unfortunately, we can't explore the reasons for her reflux because there's only one formula that she can have right now due to her chyle issue. So, we can't change her diet and eliminate dairy to cure it or anything. Once this chyle stops, she can go back to breastmilk. We were told 3 months today. I believe she will have the chest tube in for most of that time too, so she can drain that fluid, since it almost drowned her during her last extubation.

So, all in all, it's been a great day! What a great change of emotion. I went from crying because I thought we would lose her, to crying because I was so excited that she seems to have improved. I don't think we'll sleep much tonight, as we'll be sleeping with no earplugs so we can hear her cough or choke or whatever on her feeds, if she does spit them up. Getting through tonight will be nerve wracking, but we definitely both felt that today was the right day to extubate her, and I have faith that she will be okay. She told me to tell you all that she loves you and owes all of her success to God and you all!

xoxo!