Heading to the Step Down (which is actually a Step Up)

4-15-10 Tax Day
Mandi and I got to the hospital and headed for the CICU to see our baby girl. We walked the halls with anticipation because of the experiences from the previous night. We had prayed all along that little Claire would be a fighter… she was throwing some punches which probably did not help with her pain levels. We got to our room and she was resting pleasantly. Shortly after we arrived the nurse practitioner team took the chest to out. This was a huge relief of the pain for Claire Bear. We started to take her off of the pain medication. It was nice to start to see some of the tubes going away. We laughed because at one point, every extremity and 5 of 7 orifices had some sort of sensor or tube.
We had a great afternoon and slowly watched more sensors and tubes come away. Mandi got to feed her and I just hung out. I was super tired from two weeks of excitement and talked with Mandi about heading home a little earlier (8:00pm) to hang out with Colton and get to bed early. Little Miss Claire Bear must have heard me because she decided at that time to have a little set back. Her oxygen saturations fell below acceptable levels and gave us a little scare. The team of doctors decided to give her some red blood cells to increase her oxygen carrying capacity at about 11pm. Luckily, this did the trick. Eventually, her levels got to the point where we felt comfortable heading back to Delaware. As we left we were unsure how this little set back would keep us commuting to and from Columbus.

4-16-10
Colton woke me up bright and early. We watched a little TV and I made all of us breakfast. We dropped off Colt to Mimi and headed to the hospital. Just as we were getting off the exit, Mandi’s phone rang. We still get that sick feeling in our stomach when we see the number (614-722-2000). What the heck this time? It did not take long to hear from the tone of Mandi’s voice that it was positive news. Claire was being moved from the Cardiac ICU to a step down unit which is actually a significant step up in amenities. We now have our own bathroom and Claire is mobile! All of her monitors communicate through a wireless network which allows us to move about the floor. The floor has two playrooms which I am excited to show Colton and is more kid brother friendly than we have experienced at Childrens. We are so happy to have Claire doing well and in a place where we can actually have a family relax TOGETHER. We can shut the door and there is not a whole lot of things that a curious three year old can screw up.

We are excited for Colton to get here tonight and actually get to hold his little sister.

We appreciate your thoughts and prayers.