Nothing Ever Goes as Planned

     So as always I should have known better than to get my hopes up about being discharged so quickly. The Drs have decided to keep Elizabeth inpatient a little longer. As I have said numerous times, her oxygen saturation drops while she sleeps, which is why we have been putting oxygen on her during the night and nap time. But some of the Drs and nurses felt concerned and have I feel, pushed the issue. The drops are not very frequent and do not last for long periods of time.  So the transplant team is trying to get a sleep study scheduled for hopefully tonight, or tomorrow night to see if its apnea or if they can tell what is going on during her sleep time.  Transplant feels pretty certain, as do Matt and I, that its all related to her shallow breathing during sleep which can be caused by transplant itself. When they took out her lungs and replaced them with donor lungs there are nerves that get cut or damaged and sometimes it just takes time for those to heal and for her get back to being able to take deep breaths again.  But of course, some of the Drs feel the trach may need to be put back in or she may need more support during sleep than the oxygen, like CPAP or something similar. So we will hope for the study to happen tonight but it could possibly be tomorrow night before we are able to get it done. I had REALLY hoped for a short stay this time. Elizabeth is doing really well without the trach during the day and her awake time. So I am hoping that this issue is something that can be resolved without the trach.
      The upside to being inpatient now is that we were able to get some of the tests needed for her 3 month post transplant evaluation out of the way. She had imaging done today of her diaphragms to make sure they were working properly and were not part of the issue with her saturation drops, the halter monitor of her heart was finished this morning, and she had an echo of her heart done as well as a few lab tests. So hopefully, we will have a scheduled date for her bronch before we get out of here this week.

Elizabeth has adjusted to being back in the hospital, I think she can tell its not home for sure. She was pretty fussy the first day. She has had lots of visitors :) Alot of her PICU nurses that took care of her before have stopped by to see her. I love being able to share her progress with them. They cared for her when she was so sick and have seen her through so much of this journey. Its good for  them to be able to her making progress and know that all those days/nights of dealing with Matt and I were well worth it  ;)