Home On Monday!

Hello Everyone,
Namine is coming home on Monday, February 2nd. Great Grandpa has a great birthday present:) Namine is doing well. She has recovered surprisingly well after having this heart surgery. She is down to 30% oxygen not only on the vent but on her trac collar and doing fabulous. She is stating in the low to mid 80's. They have her doing two 60 minute trials and they are bumping her up to 90 minutes tomorrow, and when she comes home we are going to work her up to more of her regular schedule of 5 hours collar, 2 hours vent, 5 hours collar and vent over night. The doc's would like to see her back on her regular schedule of collar for 24 hours but that is something that we have to work up to.

On top of her heart surgery two weeks ago she has 4 teeth on the top that are trying to work their way through. She has two teeth on the bottom that have come through, how exciting, but let me tell you she bites hard. She is so cute.

Yesterday Namine needed an IV put in so that she could go for her MRI of her shoulder today and she is a hard stick. She got so upset last night that she decanulated herself. Decanulated means removal of trac. She was crying so hard and with the vent pulling it just came out. Paul and I worked quickly and got a different one back in. It was scary but Paul and I are an awesome team and work better than a well oiled machine.

Namine is doing great after her MRI and hopefully we will hear results tomorrow and then we will update you all when we find out.

We can't thank you enough for all the prayers and support that you have given. We will continue to give updates over Namine's obstacles. Keep praying we still have a long road ahead of us.
Love and God's Blessings,
Jessica, Paul and Namine Eiche

Forth to the fourth

Hey everybody. Namine has been moved up to the 4th floor. This seemed like a pretty sudden thing, since Jessica got to the PICU room yesterday and they said, "hey, we're moving her upstairs!" But actually, the doctors tell us that recovery time after the glen procedure is a lot shorter than it was after her first heart surgery. Namine may be able to come home at the end of this week; on the other hand, it may be a few weeks before coming home. We'll let you know.

Almost all tubes out. Also, pink!

So Namine's trach was put back in, making her a much happier baby. Her chest drainage tubes were also removed; her left and right arterial lines were removed, but the one in her arm is still in. They also made sure that her new G-tube is in correctly before they start feeding her. They may do that tonight, but tomorrow morning is more likely. She's down from 12 pumps to 3. Less equipment is always a good thing.

You'll notice I've changed the overall color of the site. I hope it's pink, I can't really tell. ;)
I have also changed the tab links at the top. Click the photos and videos links to see!

Post Tube Addition

After they put an additional drainage tube in, Namine's stats improved significantly. Her temperature is a little high, but that may just be an effect of having surgery (especially heart surgery). She was still quite sleepy while we were visiting her, although she did open her eyes a few times, only to decide we weren't worth waking up for. :)

We suspect she's still quite uncomfortable. She has a line in her right shoulder, which is her bad shoulder, and her right hand is still hooked up to a lot of other tubes. She's still intubated, which we well know she hates, and they have her left arm restrained because she already tried extubating herself. Oh yes, we know we have a fighter on our hands.

Tomorrow they plan to put her trach back in, so they can extubate her. They also plan to start feeding her again.

Another Chest Tube

This morning the hospital called us. Namine 's chest was draining some more fluid, so they decided to put another tube in to control the drainage. Other than that, she's doing fine.

Surgery Finished!

We're here in the waiting room. Namine's surgeon just came out to tell us that they've finished, and everything went extremely well. All parts of the surgery went as planned; there was a little bleeding near the end, but they kept that under control. The nurse said that once she was taken off the bypass machine, her heart started beating on its own again. That doesn't always happen, and the nurse told us, "you've got a little fighter, you know." (Oh, yes, we know.) Now they've closed her chest back up and will soon be in the PICU, where we can see our baby girl again.

Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and support. God has truly blessed us!

Surgery Finally

Namine is going on Tuesday finally for her heart surgery that has been long awaited. She is the first case on Tuesday morning.

Namine had a hematoma on her right arm that burst on Thursday night. It was full of green and yellow puss and bled quite a bit, so they have it dressed up. They had to start her on antibiotics because they were not sure if it was infected or not. I pray to God that it wasn't infected, because if it was it might delay her heart surgery again. :( As far as we know right now she is still going on Tuesday.

Please keep us all in your thoughts and prayers and we will try and keep you updated. Love you all bunches!!!

GOD BE PRAISED!

Love,
Jessica, Paul and Namine Eiche

Surgery Tuesday

Well, change of plans. Again. The doctors tell us that - for sure, now - Namine will be going for her heart surgery this Tuesday at 7:30 am. Jessica and I are none too happy about all the changes and about-faces that the hospital has done with Namine, but it looks like things are finally settling into a final schedule.

No Surgery Thursday

I went to the hospital today after work, and asked to talk to the cardiology department. (Let me catch you up here, in case you don't know.) They had said originally that Namine's heart surgery needed to be as soon as possible, and they wanted to do it last Friday. But her heart surgeon was going to be away all weekend; he wanted to be around afterward in case anything went wrong, so they said they would do it this Thursday. But then someone else at the hospital told Jessica that they were only going to talk about her surgery on Thursday.

So I went to the hospital after work. Cardiology said (they didn't bother actually coming to talk to me, they just told the nurse, who told me) that they are, for sure, only talking about her surgery on Thursday. So much for "she needs her heart surgery as soon as possible."

Hopefully we'll know more after tomorrow, when Jessica will have had a chance to talk not only to cardiology, but Namine's cardiologists themselves.

Surgery

Namine is scheduled for her heart surgery next Thursday.  They had her on the schedule for this Friday but her surgeon was going to be out of town over the weekend and he wasn't comfortable with that so they moved her surgery.  It is going to be a scary one.  I know that the last surgery was scary, but this one is a lot more evassive and critical.  We need you all to pray that God guides the surgeons hands and that all goes well.  Thanks to everyone and Thanks to God!

Happy New Year!  God's Blessings,
Jessica, Paul and Namine Eiche