Hopefully heading home soon

Gracie has been doing very well since the last update. Over the weekend, they tried to wean off the oxygen but were unsuccessful (they did not try Sunday), but were successful on taking her off the ativan and methadone. Gracie had spit up some on Sunday and so they wanted to do another chest x-ray and call in a pulmonary doctor to see if there was anything they could do to help Gracie get off oxygen. Yesterday, Gracie was not a happy camper, but was doing very well with out the oxygen except for when she did try to sleep. She would not eat or sleep and had been up since 5 am. Needless to say Todd and I was worn out, a little grumpy, and very frustrated. The pulmonary doctors came by yesterday and said that there was not anything that they thought needed to be done or that would help Gracie but that it would just take time to get her off the oxygen. The night shift nurse came in when the pulmonary doctor was in here and heard the part about being on it a while probably so immediately turned the oxygen back on after she left. I was not very nice to this nurse because she would come in and wanted to force Gracie to eat all her bottles every three hours and what did Gracie do.......throw up all over me. So I told her that Gracie had not been eating well Monday, had not slept, and I would rather her NOT come in and wake her up, but if she wanted to come in and force feed her, she was more than welcome to and that she would probably be covered in throw up so I guess she decided to leave us alone.

Anyway, enough about the grumpiness and nurses...we are just ready to be home. The nurse turned off the oxygen today and Gracie has done well all day. The doctors came in this morning and said that there was no way of getting Gracie home on the airplane because they still want her to have oxygen and the only way they will release us was if we were going to drive. They said that there was a lot of extensive phone calls done on Monday and that there was nothing possible for Gracie to have that the airlines would approve, so we would be driving home. So I got on the Internet and decided to do some more investigating. I found on Southwest there was some companies that deal with airline approved oxygen so I called them and they said yes she should be able to use those and that they could overnight one. The pulmonary doctor came back in today and thought that it would be fine to use and if it was a higher dose than what Gracie needs, we could use a mask and she would not get as much that way, so I told this to the discharge nurse and she said, "I thought I knew everything that has to deal with pediatrics, and I have never heard of this." SO that is the way this day has gone...BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So ANYWAY...............Gracie is probably going to be released tomorrow and hopefully we will get to fly home on Friday!!!!!! If not, Todd and I will drive home, but let's all hope and pray we can fly. I will keep you updated and let you know something hopefully tomorrow and know definitely when we will be home!

Here are some pics with Gracie sitting in the toy at the hospital. We had to use about 4 blankets and you couldn't see her feet at the bottom. **Notice there is nothing in her nose!!!