Olivia's way

I think Olivia ended up poopin' around 8 times yesterday. So, they are holding her laxatives until further notice. She has decided not to follow the doctor's plans and hasn't tolerated weaning down on her vent. However, Dr. T. is trying to stick with his original plan and make some changes today. The residents are kind of scared of Olivia (rightfully so) and they aren't as gutsy as Dr. T. He came in and flat out turned off her epi drip, just because. She seems to be tolerating it well. (I think she has a special place in her crazy heart for Dr. T. She always seems to cooperate for him!) They will continue to try to wean down her nitric oxide with the hopes of getting it off tomorrow morning. We'll see about any vent changes. So far, I think the plan is still to try to extubate tomorrow sometime. Right now, she looks perfect.

I talked to her cardiologist a little bit this morning. He is under the impression that Dr. F. (the surgeon) will take care of the sub-aortic stenosis first. While he's in there, he should be able to tell if that decreases the mitral valve regurgitation. If by some miracle of a chance he thinks that takes care of it, then he should be able to be done. However, most likely, he will then try to repair her mitral valve. If he's confident that it's a good repair - done! If not, then he will go ahead and replace it with an artificial valve - definitely not the best case scenario, but manageable with blood thinners, frequent blood thinners, and future surgeries. We'll just cross that bridge if we come to it. If the Lord's path steers us away from that bridge, we wouldn't certainly wouldn't mind.

Do you think Wednesday will ever get here? I would love to go to sleep tonight and wake up in the morning and see the calendar read Wednesday. At least she should be in the best possible shape going in - healthy and strong!