Update

Day 54

Emma has stabilized since yesterday.  She is not getting much worse but has not started to improve very much either.  She is on basically the same settings on her oscillator as she was yesterday, which is a very high level of support.  Their current plan is to take things very slowly with her and not push her too quickly like they had been up to this point.  Her blood gases have been fine but they have not tried weaning her down on the support yet.  The doctors initially thought she would be on the oscillator until tomorrow, but we'll see how things progress. 

As of right now, it looks like it is not an infection.  They did a blood culture, and they basically watch it to see if anything starts growing in it.  It usually takes around 48 hours for things to start growing, but so far there is nothing yet.  So it seems this is just mechanical and a result of Emma being small and tired.  Yesterday she was much more active and alert, whereas on Tuesday she was very pale and tired and not her usual Emma self.  Yesterday she was back to kicking the nurses and turning her head over (towards the pillow, while intubated - definitely gave her nurse and her Mom a few extra gray hairs!) so hopefully she is starting to feel a little better. We are hoping that if she is indeed feeling better it will start to be reflected in her bloodwork, because right now things are pretty much the same.  She is still getting the IV antibiotics until the final results come back on the culture. 

Emma's glucose levels have started to come down a little bit but they are still pretty high - nowhere near as high as they were though.  Her hermatocrit levels are very low - likely due to the fact that they have been doing numerous blood draws to run labs and blood gases, so she is getting another transfusion today. 

Emma has still been gaining weight too.  The night before last her weight increased by 70 grams up to 1100 (now she's over double her birth weight), but a lot of that was probably due to the tubing from the vent; that was the first time she was weighed after coming off the SiPAP.  Last night she gained another 40 so right now she's at 1140 grams, which is 2 1/2 pounds.  Her feeds were increased to 7 mL/hour and she is doing pretty well with them. 

We wanted to thank everyone for all the love and support through this difficult time.  Emma has been sliding downhill for a couple days, and is now at the bottom of a big mountain that she has to climb back up, but she has a lot of people that are cheering for her and praying for her and there to support her every step of the way.  We are all very appreciative of your kind thoughts and prayers.  We'll keep you posted.