Starting to Feel Better

During the night last night Lynnea was taken off from oxygen support and has been doing fine breathing on her own ever since. This morning she was moved out of the PICU and back onto the general floor (5A). Her rapid influenza and H1N1 cultures came back negative, but the final results are still pending, so for now she's still in isolation, which is nice because we get our own room. Today they began slowly restarting her feedings. Most of the day she only got small bolus feedings of Pedialyte. She was gaggy during her first one this morning, but has handled the rest just fine. At 7pm they started her back on a slow continuous drip of formula, and so far it seems to be going OK. If she handles the formula all night, then tomorrow morning they'll slowly start her back on bolus formula feedings. If all goes well, I would guess we might get to go home on Monday or Tuesday. Last night Lynnea decided that she was thirsty, and for the first time in many months, allowed us to put water into her mouth. She was willing to "drink" water off from an oral swab (a small mint flavored sponge on a stick). She continued this today and over the course of the day drank a couple of ounces of water, which was really nice to see. Of course, this evening she is back to swatting my hand away whenever I offer her a drink, so either she's not thirsty, or she remembered that she hates having anything in her mouth. Sometimes she's just silly like that. But, overall, she appears to be feeling much better than she has been all week, which is very encouraging.