NICU day 6...looking up

I can barely contain my happiness today--Daniela was taken off of the ventilator at 9 a.m. this morning!

Since yesterday, as she'd been coming out from the phenobarb haze more and more, she'd been showing signs of fighting the tube...so this morning the doc and respiratory therapist made the decision to take it out. Daniela has been seizure-free for more than 24 hours now and has had no additional apnea episodes so she is tube-free. According to today's nurse, she woke up for a bit before A and I got there for our morning visit. She had her eyes open, was looking around--must have thought 'where the hell am I?' and promptly went back to sleep. It was so nice to see her face without anything on it!

She also had a consult with the pediatric opthalmologist today who declared her eyes to be just fine (thankfully, I had been so worried about that) so more good news.

While we were there, the neonatologist came by to give us the results of the MRA. Basically, they were good. The MRA showed no evidence suggesting a stroke (the original MRI showed the brain injury and the call was made that it was a stroke) but that may not be the case based on the more in-depth MRA findings. The only potential wrench I see in this is that the MRA done yesterday they did without contrast dye since Daniela was on the vent. Now that she's off it (knock wood she stays off), it's my thought that they may want to repeat it in the coming days, this time with contrast to see if perhaps that finds something more conclusive. But who knows? The other thing is that the brain injury could have healed itself by now and that is why it did not show up on the MRA.

So that's the big news from my part of the country. Oh, and my crying has tapered off a bit too in this past day. I think I've only had two or three episodes tops, as opposed to my usual twelve or thirteen. I know, I know...good days and bad. But today is shaping up to be one of the good ones.

I can't wait to get back there for tonight's visit.