After the photo shoot on Wednesday night Julie began to have some serious reversals. Both Sarah and I noticed that she wasn’t looking or acting her best on Wednesday, but didn’t say anything to Peter and Marla. By Thursday night she took a turn for the worse…
Julie has had some reversals since our last update for Monday.
The new breathing machine hasn’t worked out. Julie was struggling to keep up and she started accumulating fluid again. Despite several adjustments, the staff finally relented and put her back on the oscillator machine early this morning. She looked similar to what she looked like at birth – her face and abdomen were swollen. She has black and blue marks in several places where they insert IV fluid (hands, feet, elbows) or because the swelling is so bad (nose, eyes, cheeks).
Julie never got to 32 cc per feeding but peaked at 28 cc. She couldn’t take that much all at once, so they slowly gave it to her over an hour and a half time frame. Then she rests for an hour and a half before repeating the cycle.
They are thinking about inserting a catheter into her belly button again. It would help limit the other punctures, but could lead to blot clots and infection. So, they are giving her some antibiotics to help bolster her immune system.
Sarah has been making the milk runs without me this week. Friends and family have been driving her to the hospital and waiting while she visits Julie and pumps her next meal. Last night, Sarah and I went together. She looked worse than she has since she was born swollen and sore with bandages, wires and tubes all over. Julie was sedated to prevent her from fighting against the breathing machine. Despite this, she instinctively wrapped her fingers around my finger until she was too tired.
Please continue to pray for Julie’s recovery and that the doctors will understand why the fluids came back.
Andy and Sarah Horn
Although the doctors warned us about these reversals, it caught us off guard. We hoped that our story in the NICU was about to end. Julie had lost most of her excess fluid and had gotten stronger with the breathing machine. The nurses used a machine to slowly feed Julie her meals.
We woke up early Friday morning and determined to spend much of the afternoon at the NICU with Julie. We planned to leave after sending this update, but we got a phone call…