Amazing progress!!

Each day we get more nervous that we are going to hit another brick wall with her progress, but each day Kamryn just amazes us. They have focused on her rate (number of breaths the vent pushes per minute) and the progress is unreal. To put it in perspective, for the first 21 days or so her rate stayed between 50 and 60. Over the past few days, she has managed to allow it to come down from 48 to 24. Tonight, they plan to wean her down to 20 which is our loose target on that setting before she can be extubated!

Her pressure has been in the low twenties for a number of days now while they work on the rate. Her highest pressure has been 30 and tonight she is down to 20. She doesn't have far to go to hit the target of 15 - 18 before she is extubated.

She has done all of this over roughly a week. I was able to see her chest x-ray yesterday and she doesn't look like the same baby from just three days prior. You can actually see her left lung now and it looks to be fully engaged in the air exchange process! Her right lung looks great and her heart has shifted more to the left. It's like she just flipped a switch and said she is ready to get on with things. It's just amazing and we really are on top of the world right now with how well she is doing.

I won't make any guesses as far as when she will be off the vent, but if she keeps going at this rate, it can't be too many more days. We are praying that she doesn't hit a brick wall.

Monica, one of her primary nurses put this together for us and I just had to post it.


Aren't her nurses amazing! It's been 29 days and her nurses have helped us keep it together and I just can't say enough about them!

We have to thank Allison from our Sunday school class who was just amazing today! She watch Hollie and Brooke and made us dinner and gave Stef and I the ability to be up at the hospital together today at the same time. Our friends are generous beyond words!

Well, that's it for tonight. Everything is going better than we could have expected. I hope to be able to tell you all that she is successfully down to a rate of 20 tomorrow!

Take care,
Shawn