Lots of Karsie

Pre-Delivery Pic

Waiting for the doctor got tiring.  

The "of the day" part had to be taken out as we have not kept up with that part.  But nevertheless, we have more pictures.

Update (8-19)

Good News:  Not much to report

Karsie was wide awake when we went in today.  She has been sleeping a lot and real well, so that's great, but there is a lot of time spent awake too.  Today Nana came in and read to her and Karsie really seemed to enjoy that.  Her respiratory rate has been keeping in the zone a lot (40-60) more lately, which is good, and she has also been breathing much more easily when she is in that zone.  Earlier when they started the sprinting on nasal cannula Karsie was either breathing faster (80's, 90's) or she was showing slight signs of higher effort in her breathing (chest up, nose flaring slightly), but she's getting better, which means she should do real well after she is switched to cannula completely.

Karsie is now at 5mL an hour.  For her weight the goal is around 15 an hour.  They go so slow for a few reasons.  One is to make sure that she tolerates the amount and not throwing up. Another is to make sure she doesn't get bloated.  You and I eat a real big meal and can loosen our belts and our stomach expands.  If she gets bloated, she has no room to expand because of the patch, which could pop more stitches.  She is still going up .5 mL a day, but the higher she goes they may increase it to a full mL an hour.

One thing we are keeping an eye on has been her chest tube stitch.  It's still on.  We think Kylee will take it out today, but it's been on much longer than it probably needs to be, but it's probably not a big deal.  Just might be a tad uncomfortable if she grazes it.  

CPAP and Nasal Cannula

Every once in a while we go back and reread the blog just for a little history lesson (it takes everything in us not to correct errors...we may eventually as we are both teachers and cannot stand it).  However, we have noticed that for the past few days of pictures Karsie is on the nasal cannula, which may give the impression that she is on that continuously.  She is only on it about 8 hours a day, but the NICU staff are wonderful and trying to time it so she gets on the cannula when we are there so we can see her face.  However, we do have a couple pictures that show her on the CPAP machine that is a bit new.  She kinda looks like Hannibal Lecter.  

Disclaimer:  Nana said "she doesn't look like Hannibal Lecter."  Which is true.  The mask does. So for now we'll say it also looks like an old school football helmet.