Update on Faith and Makaila 7

Hello everyone! My apologies on the the long gap between this update and the last one. We have had some rough luck with internet access the past couple of days. It has been a crazy few days as of late and we are at the hospital right now. But there is good news. Both Faith and Makaila are doing better. Makaila started off as the worse of the two this past weekend with lots of crashes but has recovered the most so far. She is off the oscillator and back on to the ventilator, which she apparently decided to do on her own. One evening a few nights ago Makaila somehow managed to remove the oscillator tube from her throat and mouth. They're not sure how she did it but they decided to put her on the ventilator and she has done well with the change. Her reliance on the ventilator for oxygen has dropped, which means her levels of oxygen saturation are higher which is good. The ventilator is still doing most of the breathing for Makaila so she can rest, she is being weaned off of the sedation medication at this point, and her blood pressure is better. Makaila's lungs are still filled with and surrounded by fluid so they are putting her on medication to remove some of that fluid and we are still waiting on blood cultures to come back to find out if her lung infection is progressing or regressing.

Faith started off being the strongest of the two girls, but that quickly changed a few days ago and she remained in an unstable critical condition with lots of crashes. Everytime they tried to move her or do any work on her she would crash so she was being heavily sedated. Her lungs have also filled with fluid and are surrounded by fluid. Yesterday they gave her hydrocortizone, a steroid, and this both helped raise her blood pressure (together with another blood transfusion) which had been low and increase her ability to receive oxygen on her own. Faith is still on the oscillator but is only on 38% oxygen which is low (and about the same level Makaila is on) and means she's doing most of the work on her own. She has stabilized significantly and they hope to put her back on the ventilator later on today. We are also waiting to hear the results of her blood cultures to see how her blood infection is progressing.

Both girls are doing much better than a few days ago, but they still have a long way to go to get back to where they were before last weekend. They need to overcome these infections and get strong enough so they can get off the ventilators and onto CPAP. While the ventilators help them breathe, being on them for a long period of time actually works against the healthy development of their lungs. So getting them stable enough as quickly as possible so they can get on to CPAP is our biggest goal right now.

We are encouraged by the turnaround both Faith and Makaila have experienced in the last 24 hours. We have been told that Karyn will even be able to have her second cuddle time with Makaila today! Faith has a bit more to go to catch up to Makaila before she's ready for another cuddle, but we hope that this can happen in the next few days. Thank you for your continued support and prayers, they are very much needed and are making a huge difference!

Blessings,

Graham