Today

I was talking to a friend today, a bit, about how difficult it is to explain to someone how you get by day by day here. I think there are too many movies and television shows that dramatize it so that people envision either the strong, stoic parent(s) advocating and fighting for their child or the parents dramatically throwing themselves around or collapsing or screaming because they can' t wait for "the cure" anymore. I have to admit that there are times that I want to reenact that scene at the end of "Steel Magnolia's" when Sally Field, asked for the millionth time if she is okay or something, breaks down and yells about how she is fine, but her daughter is not. Sometimes, I do feel like that, but most of the time we are numb. Our brains have this amazing ability to sedate us in such a way so that we can function on a day to day basis only. So as I sat here wondering what to title this post and wondering what day it is anyway, I thought of all this and thought I would attempt to explain why we don't know what day it is because while it is a little like one long day sometimes, more often I think it feels like just some day, another day to get through, just like yesterday was and tomorrow will be. A day we have to function while Emmy fights.

So what did today bring? Nothing too exciting or upsetting. Dr. Webster gave Emerson the goal of not throwing up and not getting a fever today. Emmy did pretty well. She has not thrown up green bile since this morning, but she does have an NG tube removing much of the bile for her. As for the fever, she did well until about 4:15ish, when her fever was 101.9. We turned down the temp in the room, wiped her with a cool washcloth and gave her Tylenol through an I.v., and her temperature is down to 99 now. I am hopeful to go sleep at my brother in law's house tonight and get some better sleep if she can to keep her temperature under control.

The good news is that Emerson's breathing is great. She is still breathing above the ventilator. This infection and the illius have not interrupted that progress; however, while her wound vac is putting out less,which would mean that maybe we could close her stomach in a couple of days and possibly extubate her shortly after that, this illius and infection may have delayed that possibility. It is very much a wait and see situation.

Emerson has been resting most if the day. She has been sedated on and off with adavan and morphine, but she is also tired from last night and we are still figuring out the proper dosage for her phenobarbital, so it is likely she is pretty sleepy from all of that. While her ability to wake up and show responses is important to me, I am happy to see her resting right now. I just feel like her little body is working through a lot and it needs rest at the moment more than a day of progress.

I think that pretty much sums up today. It has been pretty quiet, and Brian and I have used today to rest and regain composure- well, that last part is mostly me because Brian has been way more calm and composed than I have over the past 20 hours.