I had a really hard time dealing with the fact that the doctors put Jane in the incubator yesterday because it took away my freedom to touch her, kiss her, and talk to her….the caring and love she needs to receive from her parents. But then this morning Dr. Shin explained to me that they are trying to create the perfect environment for her free from added stimuli and any additional work that she has to do on her own (i.e. regulating temperature). Then it dawned on me, OH- we are just growing our own delicate little flower in her own little greenhouse and of course we want the best conditions….the perfect amount of light, the perfect soil conditions, just enough humidity….to bloom and flourish.

After morning rounds we all learned what the issue was with Jane yesterday. Apparently, her lungs are getting much better, which is a great thing, but it took a huge toll on her body. Although that in itself is good, it becomes a problem because naturally as the lungs heal more blood gets delivered to her lungs and that is where the issue starts. When too much blood gets shunted to the lungs then less blood gets profused to her body. When less blood gets to her body then her organs start to shut down. That is why she stopped peeing because her kidneys stopped working and her liver has not improved. Her feeds (MBM) were stopped because less blood was flowing to the gut. The “good” led to a domino effect of other problems. She became agitated which increased her heart rate, which increased her blood pressure, which made her heart start working harder and the list goes on. Of course the big question is-what do we do about that? Dr. Shin said there are 2 things to do: 1) She just needs to grow so that her body can handle what it needs to, as she heals and gets bigger her body will adjust on its own 2) Her shunt is a little larger than what her heart needs and so they may need to go back in and reduce the size of the shunt. It is normal for the surgeon to make the shunt a tad bit bigger so that it buys her a little more time until the next surgery and also because it is easier to reduce the size of a shunt rather than to remove it and replace in case it is too big. Over the next few days she will be watched to see how she responds. It is very likely that she will have several rough days ahead of her since these set backs really throw her for a loop and it takes her little body A LOT of time to recover. They will watch to see how she adjusts as her lungs heal and how her heart responds to the new demands. It is clear now why she was put back on her cardiac meds to reduce the workload of her heart. The Dr. said the meds act like a spotter to someone who is lifting weights. When you have a spotter helping you lift a very heavy weight it takes a lot of the pressure and workload off of  your body; the meds do that for her heart while it is healing. Today Jane is trying to recover from yesterday. Her vitals are still all over the place, but I guess that is to be expected. The medical team is doing all that they can to stabilize her again.

She has been blessed with more visitors today 🙂 Hmmm, I wonder–will all of these friends of hers follow her to Spain when we move there? Haha, JUST JOKING!!??