Elizabeth Archives - Day 17

The highlights and lowlights:


~They had to stop feeding Elizabeth because she continued to throw up throughoutlast night and today. Finally they gave her some meds intended to help her tummy hold onto the Portagen and tomorrow they'll replace her NG tube with one that will go all the way in and out of her stomach and drop the food off past the point where it is causing her to vomit. Hopefully this will keep more of the nutrients moving through her. Please pray that this is effective. They may also reassess the decision to feed her at all before her chest-tube drainage has stopped. They may decide to backtrack and hold off future feedings until she's completely "dry". In that case they would still give her the nutrient rich fluids she was previously receiving. We don't know what is best for her. Our end goal is for her fluid drainage to stop altogether and for her to be able to breastfeed as soon as possible. God knows the best path toward this end and we're asking Him to give the doctors wisdom.



~After my email last night regarding our worries about how to comfort her, I think we made a breakthrough today. After being awake all day (from about 10am until 5pm) Elizabeth was clearly distraught. She had a fever and all her vital signs showed that she was in distress. Finally, the nurse suggested I hold her (something I had been hesitant to do since she was throwing up and I didn't want to make her more uncomfortable). The moment I put her up on my shoulder (see the attached picture) she immediately went to sleep! I had to put her down after about an hour for a weighing and blood draw, but she went right back to sleep and stay that way- all evening. It was wonderful to be able to comfort her. It is my prayer that even in my absence she would feel cradled all night by her Heavenly Father.


We will all sleep well tonight,

Love,

Sara & Matt