A setback

Sorry  Cora and I didn't blog yesterday.  The past two days have been very eventful, and not in a great way.  Yesterday was spent rocking, holding, consoling and begging Cora to feel better and settle.  The took her off the morphine and she was tolerating the Oxycodone, Motrin and Tylenol pretty well.  But when it got to the half hour before a dose of pain medicine Cora would be highly agitated and twisting from side to side.  Completely understandable, yet so hard for me to watch.  As a mama I want to make everything okay for Cora and there was nothing I could do.  When she would look at me with those blue eyes and say her version of "mama" it would make me feel so helpless that I could do nothing to ease her discomfort accept hold her and tell her I loved her and kiss that little forehead of hers.

During all this we did have a fun visit from some of the University of Michigan athletes who volunteer their time to visit the children at the hospital.  These four students were wonderful to talk with and signed a baseball cap for Cora.  I have to give them a shout out on Cora's blog and commend them for volunteering their time.

Finally last night about 11pm she was totally wore out and fell asleep.  She slept through the night and was up at 7am this morning.  As the day progressed Cora's breathing became labored and she started using her chest to pull in her breath and her retractions were back.  At one point her heart was racing at 170 bpm and her breathing was at 67 - 88 bpm.  She had also spiked a fever. And Cora is allergic to the hospital blankets and sheets and started to develop a rash.

At this point I started to feel overwhelmed and emotional. Totally at a loss for my daughter.

This afternoon they were able to get her fever down, although she was still breathing labored.  So the fellow on the floor increased her high flow back up to 3 (it was being weaned to room air oxygen) to help Cora again with the breathing.  Her drainage has not slowed very much and she has started losing "kile" (sp?) with the other drainage.  This is losing fat from one of her lymph nodes and that means that the formula she is eating is putting the fat out of her chest tubes.  Lord, I hope I said that right for ya'll.

When I finally got her to sleep this evening her heart beat was doing well again and her breathing was slowed to 50 bpm.  We are using the two blankets that I brought with me for the trip to keep her off the hospital linens and her rash has stopped. What was going to be a short stay in the hospital is looking like a longer one.  But if this is what Cora needs, this is what Cora gets.

In all of this, Cora still finds the energy to smile at me and give me a raspberry.  Never thought I would be happy to see one of my kids spit at me...

 A rare moment of rest with Mama

 Emily taking her turn

 Finally a restful sleep