Friday, July 28, 2006

The plan for Lydia!

I know a few of you didn't like seeing the photo of Lydia in intensive care with all the pipes and wires (especially Lewis in Clevedon!!), so here's a slightly better one of her in the cardiac ward. From her heart operation perspective she is recovering well. They have increased her feeds to almost 40mL every 3 hours, which is a big step. Most of the feeds are being given through her nose tube, but it was very exciting for me to be able to give her the first bottle earlier today.
She took 30mL straight from the bottle, but then got very confused about sucking and breathing, so I gave her the rest through her nose tube as you can see here!
Her right arm and leg are still a cause for concern, so they are keeping her on the Heprin (blood thinning drug) until next Tuesday, and are monitoring her very faint pulses every 2 hours. Following this, and if she is continuing to improve (and there is an ambulance available), the plan is to move her back to the Heath Hospital in Cardiff next Wednesday, which would be fantastic. They will be concentrating on establishing feeding, and then maybe soon she'll finally be allowed home - hooray!!!