An Evening at the Spa

Okay, so not exactly what one would think. Our night nurse Laura spent a couple hours giving Vivian a much-needed sponge bath and washed her hair too. She changed Vivian's patches around and put ointments on to protect her skin abrasions and chapped areas. Vivian apparently enjoyed the scalp massage because she relaxed into it and dropped her blood pressure a few points. Nurse Laura changed Vivian's bedding and shifted her to a new position.
So, Vivian should be ready for another resful night. The next big milestone is going to be working her medications down and getting her ready to prove she doesn't need so much oxygen and nitric oxide to keep her pulmonary arteries relaxed and blood flowing.

Oh and we are on hospital schedule too, so things don't always happen when they say. They did not do the line replacements today. That goes on the list for tomorrow.

Funny story from last night...Our night nurse-the same one--put Vivian's Elmo doll in her hand and its body and head sort of rested against Vivian's torso. Well, this toy normally opens its mouth when you shake him and he talks or makes noises. So the respiratory therapist comes in to check Vivian's breathing. Every time Vivian takes a breath, Elmo's mouth opens just slightly and closes again. It's not enough to trigger the classic Elmo noises, but it was hilarious because it looked like Elmo was breathing right along with Vivian. It surprised the therapist because she couldn't figure out if the toy was turned on and mimicking Vivian's breathing or what!

Finally, I cut short on my update earlier, but we enjoyed company from a friend from church and from Ken's sister Denise and husband Todd and their kids Zach and Kate. We shared lunch together and visited and took all our active boys to a park near by for a couple hours. A fun time had by all.

We are forcasting a couple more weeks in the hospital. I am wondering if our hospital stay will be the same or longer than our travel to China?

By the way, today when the nurse was cleaning out Vivian's mouth earlier today, she was a bit awake and pursed her cute little lips together to refuse that when the nurse tried to go in a second time. It touched my heart to see a glimpse of our sweet little Vivian.

I'm off to bed now. Ken and the boys are spending the night again here in a "hotel-style" room here in the hospital available to families for a small fee. I hope these posts are keeping folks updated. I'm better at writing a conversational letter to a specific person rather than a message into cyberspace. Love, Keri