Kit Update

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone--

First thank you for all of your support and prayers--it has surely helped.

Kit came through the surgery well and is doing okay. The surgery time itself

was not nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be--it was hard to give my

baby to the nurses to take away, but the next three hours pretty much went by

very fast and uneventful. The dr. came and talked to me about 8:10 am and a

nurse came out at about 10:35 and told us the repair was complete with no

complications and that they were just closing her up. The doc came out about

11:05 and told us everything went as planned and he thought she would be fine

soon.

And actually going to see her for the first time was not nearly as traumatic

as I had thought it would be either. Yes, she was/is definitely hooked up to

lots of tubes, wires, machines...., but she actually looked pretty good. We had

hoped she would be out of PICU today, but they are being extra cautious because

of her Ds and don't want to remove the vent until they are absolutely positive

she will do okay on her own. I guess, their main concern is the excess water

she's retaining--they increased her Lasix and tonight added another diuretic,

Diurel (?), to, hopefully, speed up the process of eliminating the excess. The

hard part now is just waiting and the few times she did wake up and look at me

and there was nothing I could do for her---I felt so awful. And a few times she

tried to cry and there was no sound, just that little grimace and a lone tear

down her face. I cried (I " m crying now, just remembering). So that has been

the most difficult thing for me. The dr.'s and nurses all say she's doing

exactly what she should be doing, so that's good. It's just hard for us to see

much change because they are keeping her fairly sedated as long as she's on the

vent. They have eliminated a few of her meds and decreased some of them, plus

they started feeding her and removed the nasal tube draining stomach contents

from her...so things are slowly improving. We're hopeful that tomorrow they'll

be able to remove the vent and, maybe, by Wednesday she'll be removed from PICU.

I just came home tonight to see Mac and do some laundry--will go back to MI

tomorrow am. Leaving her there was hard, too, but my sister stopped to see her

this evening and will be there first thing in the am. Plus, I know she's in

excellent hands, so it was okay to leave for the night.

I hope we'll be home sometime this weekend and I'll send another update then.

Until then, continue to send your good vibes and prayers our way and I'll do the

same for all of your children and Happy New Year to ALL!!!

Love,

Jill

Mom to Mac (3.75 Ds) and Kit (4.5 months, Ds, ToF repaired!)