A different way to celebrate...

Hope you all had a happy 4th of July! Mia is now 5 months old!

Ours, of course, wasn't the happiest, but we're all doing much better! Mia has had a rough few days beginning on Wednesday morning. It was Mercedes' birthday, so I went in to visit Mia around 7am and was surprised to see her awake already. She looked warm and was fighting a bit, but I didn't know why. Around 2pm, I got a call saying she had a low-grade fever and that they were going to give her Tylenol and will monitor her. The following days, her heart rate increased and she was needing to be on a little bit of oxygen to keep her staturations in the 90's. Friday she had another low-grade fever and one cheek was bright red and her nose was really runny, so I figured she was teething. (Mercedes cut her first tooth at 5 months.) Mia kept sticking her fingers in her mouth and she looked like she was in pain, so it was my first guess. Made sense!

I got a call yesterday afternoon when I was just about to get the in pool with my family that Mia kept desaturating and her co2 levels were through the roof and they were thinking it could be pneumonia. I spent about another 10 minutes with my family, then headed over to see Mia. After giving her Albuterol treatments every 2-4 hours and still not sounding good, they decided to call 911 to take her to the PICU at Good Samaritan Hospital just a block away. There are only 4 beds in the PICU and they were filled, so they decided to take her to the ER and wait for a bed to be ready. It wasn't an emergency until they were loading Mia onto the stretcher and she lost all color and her lips turned blue. Giving her full oxygen wasn't helping, nor was bagging her. I walked away just to give them their space, then I heard a very scary thing - the RT yelling for the crash cart. Nurses and RT's were running from the other rooms into Mia's and of course I totally lost it. It seemed like forever, but about 2 minutes later, they said she had a very strong pulse.

Then they rushed Mia to the ER and she was there for several hours and was just really groggy. Robert left from Vegas to drive out here while the rest of my family and his parents were waiting in the ER lobby. Pastor Christian Zorio from our church came and prayed with Mia and I and read some scripture.

While being on 99% oxygen and her staturation being steady around 97-100%, she suddenly started destating to the low 80's... then lower... and lower... a bunch of people came in from out of no where and Mia desated down to 4%. She was completely gray and wasn't responding well to the bagging (since they couldn't give her any more oxygen, they bagged her). Mom was with me in the ER room and of course I lost it again thinking the worst. They were able to get her back up to 100% within a few minutes, but then she started seizing.

They then MADE room in the PICU so she could get constant care from nurses and an RT. She was moved around 1:45am and she's been resting pretty well since. They gave her a really big dose of medicine to help with the seizures, so it really knocked her out. She was finally able to get down to 60% oxygen by the time I left at 5am. I'm not sure what she's at now. Robert says she's so-so.

Apparently trach patients are prone to pneumonia being that there's very easy access for germs to get in. Please keep Mia in your prayers. She's very sick. So far she only has pneumonia in her left lung, but it's pretty bad.

Mom and I came back home just after 5:00am and the nurses allowed Robert to spend the night there with Mia. I'm not sure if he got much sleep - he was so exhausted from having a normal day, then adding the 9 hour trip on top of that. Pray for strength for all of us!

Mercedes is doing well. She spent the night with my brother and his family. They have two little girls (3 1/2 and 2), so the girls had fun together. I just heard that they're getting the girls ready for church right now. Mercedes LOVES going to church and going to Sunday school! She talks about it all week! =) My brother said that they took the girls to see the fireworks last night and apparently Mercedes was scared... but then "watched" them with her eyes closed! =) She ended up liking them! =)

We're so glad she's in the PICU getting excellent care. Those night nurses are incredible. I haven't seen such drippy sweet and polite people in ages (which is really sad!)

Oh... several of you wondered about Mia's swallowing test last week. An oral specialist was there with the occupational therapist and I'm so glad she was! She right away said that the test was dumb because of course Mia wouldn't pass it. She said it's like telling a person to take a calculus test when they've never studied. They wanted to give her as much help as possible, so I held her on her side and they stuck an eye dropper full of blue-dyed water and she instantly swallowed it! It definitely wasn't enough to pass the test, but she swallowed it!! They tried it again, and she swallowed again! The third time, she was too tired and she decided to fall asleep. But at least it's a start! =) The oral specialist wants them to try a little bit each day. I'm not sure if they've been doing that or not, but once Mia's out of the hospital and doing better, I'll ask them about it. =)

I'm sure Robert will be giving short little updates (unlike my way TOO detailed reports!)

Thank you so much for praying! Please continue to do so!

Trusting Him,
Rachael, Robert, Mercedes and Mia <3

(Pictures from yesterday morning)