Saturday - Valentine's Day

To celebrate that she has a whole heart on this very special heart holiday - Abby had a great day. She woke up MUCH less puffy and swollen and looking like our little girl. Her chest x-ray this morning was beautiful - her lungs were much more clear and open. Throughout the day the doctors started to wean her ventilator settings (very slowly, so her lungs don't collapse) and so far she's doing great. The doctor said taking her off the ventilator tomorrow is a "realistic" goal. (Sounds better than when she was calling it an "optimistic" goal.

She did have one small setback in that her heart rate very gradually dropped down yesterday over the course of 24 hours - no one hour to hour showed any large change - but when you looked at the day as a whole it had a pretty significant drop off. The doctors were okay with that during rounds this morning because her blood pressure was still good - but this afternoon that dropped off a bit too. They hooked her back up to the pacemaker and set it to pace her only if she drops to a low level again. They put her back on the medication that helps her blood pressure/heart rate and it picked right back up. They're taking a "wait and see" approach in finding out what may be causing it - but they're optimistic because her heart shown it can keep good rates on its own. Taking her tube out and letting her be more alert could help, too.

Linzy has been staying at the hospital each night since the accidental overdose. Tonight we all went out to dinner and Linzy came back to Abby's eye's wide open and her moving her arms around. She has continued to be pretty active (comparatively speaking, of course) this evening. It is amazingly encouraging to see her looking more and more herself and seeming like she feels so much better. Of course, this new state of semi-alert has Abby in soft restraints since the nurses have all seen her "pull the tube" routine... even in her very drugged state - she has shown off that skill all week!