Hey ladies, hope you, your babies and bumps are all well. We've had another rough week here, I took Grace to hospital on Saturday as she seemed very drowsy, pale and cold. We got there and discovered she was in respiratory failure, even on 100% oxygen she hardly responded. They tested her blood and her co2 level was so high they said as a adult they'd expect her to be conciousness so it was a miracle she was even slightly with us (a healthy baby will have blood co2 of around 5-6, babies who have chronic lung disease like Grace usually are around 8-9, and Grace's was 23) . They gave her a huge amount of diuretics to dry out her lungs, and anti-biotics to cover all bases including meningitis, as she was too unstable to test for it. She went onto a cpap machine to help her breathe. At this point they decided she needed to be ventilated, so needed to send her to another hospital as they can't do it post discharge at our local one. It was at this point our favourite consultant from the neonatal ward became her guardian angel, and he broke the rules which say once you've left neonatal you can't go back, and he took her back up there into the isolation room. He did this so she didn't go to doctors who don't know her when she was in such a bad way. I'm beyond grateful, apparently he had to defend his decision to the board, and she's the first baby in at least 5 years they've done this for. I believe she'd be much worse off if it hadn't been him and the nurses who know her treating her. Overnight on Saturday she started seizing, which was scary at the time, but now they think it was just a reaction to the amount of co2 in her body. By Sunday I had my Grace back, she was alert, pink, squawking away and grinning at me for 8 hours straight. She's still in hospital, but is currently on less oxygen than she went home on, so is doing well, and her co2 is hovering in the 8.6-10.5 range, which is acceptable so long as it doesn't rise again. We hope to have her back home next week.
And as if the week wasn't bad enough, my granddad died on Tuesday. He had a brain tumour so we knew it was coming eventually, but he was actually pretty stable and alert, but he got pneumonia and was gone within hours. I didn't even get to say goodbye as I was in hospital with Grace and mum told me just to come at the end of the day so I wasn't going back to her with germs on my skin. My mum has decided that in lieu of flowers she's asking for donations to the special care baby unit, which really touches me.
xx
I hope she continues to improve and will be home soon. Sorry to hear about your grandad also and that you didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I'm sure he's watching over you all now 
my thoughts are also with you about ur grandad....why does everything happen at once hey? Xxx
will have to do one tonight before i forget again hehe
