Ok, so here's where we are. We have her vent right where is needs to be for now. She is doing really well, and she isn't on the pressurized setting. Now she is on a vent mode that is like what everyone else in ICU would be on, like the one she was on after her transplant. So, this is a great thing. Another great thing is that her white cell which had been elevated has dropped quite a bit. But now I have a new number.
Her carbon dioxide levels are pretty high. If they tried to take her off the vent, she would try to breathe too quickly, which would sabotage her O2 levels. The reason the CO2 level is too high is because her lungs are stiff right now. We are hoping that most of that is because all the other things she had going on caused her lungs to tighten up and now that things are better, they will become more elastic and expand easier. When that happens, the CO2 level will drop. So that is our next set of numbers.
The doctors cannot give us any sort of time table as to how quickly this could happen. They know that she has defied the odds to still be fighting, and we know that God has been in on that battle. Two weeks ago they weren't sure if anything they could do would make a difference, now they know they just have to wait to see what her lungs will do. Funny how that word WAIT has been with us since the beginning!
Wonderful news.
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