Monday, November 15, 2010 4:12 PM, CST

Well, we just thought we were gonna get to go home soon! Elizabeth continued to have issues with her saturation going up and down Fri/Sat night even after her final dose of steroids. So a respirotrty panel and cultures from her trach site were taken on Friday. She had a few episodes of her saturation dropping into the 80s on Sat/Sun and then yesterday she had a really bad episode. She started gagging and crying, we could not get her calmed down and her oxygen saturation dropped into the 70's after being turned up to 15 liters of oxygen and being bagged for a little while she finally recovered a little and was in the 80s. She kept crying and struggling to breath, and was working so hard we were really scared for her.  Her saturation would not come above 83 at all and it was finally decided to try putting her nitric oxide to see if she responded, since she has in the past due to her pulmonary hypertension. She immediatley went up to 100 and was able to wean down some of the oxygen. She was given an additonal large dose of steroids and has remained on 20ppm of nitric all day today. So today they did an echo on her heart to see if it has gotten worse. We also found out that the culture from her trach shows an infection so she has been started on antibiotics. The hope is that the infection is what has caused her decline and her pulmonary hypertension hasn't gotten worse. Our Dr here is in contact with the Drs at Vanderbilt and will determine the next step once the echo results have been read. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers!!