Pretty in Pink

Here is our Gracie Girl in her first article of clothing EVER!! I asked the nurses yesterday if I could start putting her in clothes and they did not see why not. I had to make sure it was an outfit that snapped up the front so that her wound vac could poke out the side. (Thanks Suzi for the cute outfits!) She is looking, feeling and acting more and more like a normal baby. She is awake more now and will just hang out and look around. She will focus on me and almost muster up a smile but it turns out to be more like a happy expression than a real smile.

They have changed her back to my regular milk!! No more fat free. They have given her regular milk for a couple of days now and her x-ray this morning did not show any signs of the Chylothorax coming back. So this is great news. She is on a regular nose cannula now and doing well. They changed her wound vac today too and that is also looking better.

The only thing keeping her in the PICU right now is her wound vac. They always give Gracie a little but of pain medication right before they change her wound vac. Apparently they cannot administer those drugs to her up on the third floor, at least not to a Hypoplast. So they are debating whether or not to send us to the third floor and then just have her come down for a few hours on M/W/F for her wound vac change. We will wait and see how long the plastic surgeon wants to keep her wound vac on and that will determine if they move us or not.

Gracie gets her swallow study done tomorrow. What they do for this is they put a little bit of dye in a thin liquid and a nectar type liquid and then watch her through a moving x-ray to see how her body tolerates it. They can see whether or not she has reflux, or whether she aspirates her food into her lungs. It is supposed to be pretty interesting to watch. We will then know what to do with feedings depending on how she does.

So our little miracle baby continues to improve! Thanks for all of your continued prayers and support.