Sadbh’s update – January 18th 2013

It was a very long night but Sadbh slept well for the most part. Thanks to Tylenol and Ibuprofen her temperature stayed below fever but still remained higher than normal.

Her heart rate and repertory rate was also higher than normal and her blood oxygen was hovering around 94%. At one point she stood up in her cot and asked for water, in which she gulped down with great satisfaction.

I covered the first part of the night and at 2:30am Katie came down to take over.

Sadbh woke up around 7:30 and was still very weak. She only wanted to sit in Katie’s arms.

She had an appointment for 8:50 with her pediatrician, Dr. Hathaway so we got her ready and headed off.

Sadbh’s appetite returned as we waited in the clinic and so too did her energy level. She was eager to walk around and you could tell she wanted to make up for being so out of it all week.

The interesting thing that we noticed today was that if Sadbh was left to play, she would have all this energy for 10 to 20 minutes, and then all of a sudden she could hardly keep her eyes open.

Dr. Hathaway could tell that Sadbh was slowly improving; however she still gave her a couple of shots of the vaccination. 

We went over Sadbh’s night in great detail, specifically the details around Sadbh’s blood oxygen dipping below 90%.

Dr. Hathaway was surprised by this and asked us to keep an eye on her blood oxygen level throughout the day and night. Her recommendation was that if it dips below 93% for an extended amount of time that we should bring Sadbh into the ER as it could potentially mean that her infection could be developing into something worse.

By the time we were back in the car, Sadbh was out cold and very comfortable.

Ali-Baba stopped by to play and Sadbh was excited to see her.

After some light fun, Sadbh started to get tired and before long we were managing trach care.

For the past couple of days, Sadbh has not allowed us to swaddle her for trach care. We were thinking that it might have something to do with her breathing, so we decided to forego the swaddle today.

Ali-Baba helped out by holding Sadbh’s arms securely, while I held Sadbh’s trach in place so Katie could clean.  She was very good and did not put up a fuss whatsoever.

Sadbh was ready for some food and water. We tried to give her some pedialyte but she kept refusing it.

Later in the day Sadbh got to chat with Granddad, Gerdie, in New Zealand and instantly asked about Nana’s sore foot. My mum had hurt her foot some time ago, nothing serious, and Sadbh keeps saying “Nana, owwa” while pointing at her foot. Despite being sick herself, she still has time to think about others.

Her energy level improved throughout the evening but by bedtime she was exhausted again.

Her respiratory rate, heart rate and temperature were all good, however her blood oxygen level hovered around 91%.

This had us very worried so we gave her oxygen to bring her saturation level back up and called her doctors office.

The on-call doctor called us back eventually and explained that as long as her blood oxygen level stayed 93% and above, we should be fine. It was okay for us to administer oxygen if it dipped below, however if it continued through to tomorrow that we would want to bring her in.

Julie is working tonight and by 11pm Sadbh’s blood oxygen level was at 95%.

Hopefully she will maintain this rate for the rest of the night.

New photos.

Photos form January 18 2012.

All the best,

Wayne, Katie and Sadbh.