unfortunate retraction

Remember when I said Livi was coming home this week? I lied. Over the weekend it became apparent that Olivia was getting sick AGAIN. She actually has another pneumonia. Yesterday morning was really rough for her and she was having a lot of trouble breathing. The afternoon and evening brought some improvement, so we hoped that it was getting better. As my friend put it, midnight to 6am are the witching hours in the hospital. That is SO true. Livi is always changing things up in the middle of the night.

After getting up about 2am to nurse Gabs this morning I called the hospital to check on Livi since I was already awake. The woman at the desk who answered the phone said, "actually, the physician is here to talk to you." Never good. In case you were wondering. Long story short, she had more trouble breathing again last night. More than the actual oxygen amounts are the pressures it takes to open her airways. Remember the pumonary hypertension? This is where it comes into play. Since the heart and the lungs work together essentially as one organ system, a problem in the heart effects the lung and visa versa. Livi's heart defects (which are fixed) are still causing some pulmonary hyptertension which effects the pressures needed to "pop" her airways back open, especially when she is sick. So, now Livi is in ICU again, on bipap (the mask that helps keep the airway open, very similar to CPAP). She is not on a ventialator, but this is known as non-invasive airway support. Its just a mask, no tubes down her throat. Other than that, I don't have a lot of information or a crystal ball-- both of which I would like. I don't know if she will get as sick as she did before. Probably not, but since she wasn't 100% when she got the second pneumonia there is no real way to tell.

We will keep you as updated as we can. I'll leave you with a picture from last week when Livi and I were cruising the hallways in the hospital and having a grand 'ol time.