Tuesday evening

Emma Kate did well overnight, and has continued to have lots of good diapers. She has been weaning off her drugs through the day and seems to be tolerating it well, as long as her replacement drugs are current. She had a long period this evening where she was very awake and very wiggly, trying to play with her wires and things, and kicking her blankets off. We were concerned earlier in the day about her belly getting distended again, and didn't get much output when we had another NG tube placed, but sure enough, a couple hours later she had a ginormous diaper and lost 3cm from her girth! She had another attempt made for a PICC line in her leg this time, and unfortunately it was unsuccessful. We'll probably have to revisit the option of a surgically placed catheter soon, especially if she takes longer than expected to wean off her drugs. We had a couple nervous episodes this morning where she got to coughing so hard that she gaged and spit up mucous, so now we're just paranoid about aspiration... she seems to be doing ok with it though, and has had some productive coughing and suctioning from her ET. Sounds like the plan right now is to look at extubating possibly Friday, but as we have learned well, that is subject to change. Our primary ENT doc has gone out of town for the holiday and won't be back till Monday, so hopefully nothing terribly thrilling happens before then.