Wednesday morning update

When we got in to see Ellie this morning she smiled big for us. She is doing a great job responding. Right side is slightly weaker sometimes. She got tylenol last night for a slight fever. The nurses and doctors say she is such a good patient. She is on very little sedation and pain meds and doesn't freak out and try to take tubes out. Aparently other kids wouldn't be so calm. I'm glad to hear this because I thought she'd fight against all the tubes.

The doctors said everything looks great. Her feeding is going well. They are going to increase the feedings and amounts. They are suctioning a lot out of her lungs and today it's green so they are going to test the mucus to make sure no germs are growing in there. We don't want pneumonia. They will do another CT scan this afternoon to check on swelling. Chest X-ray today looked good they said. On the ventilator machine it shows her breaths. Today she is doing the majority of the breathing on her own. So we are very glad to hear that. She is such a trooper through everything they do to her.

She gets eye drops in her eyes to help keep them moist, especially the right eye since it can't close all the way. This is something we are going to have to be careful with in the future because her right eye won't produce as many tears. We don't want to damage her eye which could lead to blindness by letting it be too dry all the time.

Her hearing in her right ear is 100% gone. Her facial movements on the right side are gone. Although she can open and close her eye. Luckily the optic nerve was saved.

We are going to try to get a video in here for her to watch later this afternoon. We will also ready books to her when she's awake. I'll keep updating more later. Thanks for all your emails and kind words. Ryan and I are doing better and are stronger every day as she gets stronger.