Day 7

How do you talk about congestive heart failure in a 6 day old baby? How do you do it without chasing tears down your face, hoping to catch them before they short-circuit your keyboard?

The medical team extubated Peyton today. For 30 minutes this evening, she was breathing on her own. Then she started crashing. The extra pumping labor of her heart, as I understand, increased the pressure in the pulmonary artery (the blood vessel taking blood from the heart to the lungs to get oxygen). This increase kept her lungs wet, and she wasn't able to keep breathing on her own. It was just too much work, so they reintubated her.

Just when we had hopes for a normal day, a stable day, an uneventful day, we are told in no uncertain terms to leave the room. It was a long walk to waiting room, holding hands, choking back the tears.

The attending told us that she's going to remain intubated through the surgery. The cardiologist has ordered another echo cardiogram for the morning, and he called the cardiac surgeon, and it looks like the surgery may get pulled up to Monday. We've been told to expect to meet with the cardiologist in the morning and one of the surgeons tomorrow night.