Evie Update - Day 7

Evie slept REALLY well again last night - about eleven hours - and then she took a 2.5 hour nap today while I was there. She is almost back on her regular schedule! She indicated to us that she wanted to rest on her side, which is how she sleeps at home, so we turned her over and she zonked out:



Francis has been catching up on his Nintendo DS games and other things during his long hours in Evie's room:

The doctors decided to start decreasing Evie's dobutamine, which she had been getting through her IV. This is the first step (in a series of small steps) toward getting her home. She can't come home, or even move out of the ICU, if she is still on dobutamine.

Evie's peripheral IV line was moved from her left hand to her right hand, because it was starting to look sore. Of course she hated getting another stick, but the nurse numbed it first and got the needle in quickly. One problem with long hospital stays is that the IV lines sometimes have to be moved for various reasons (they can come out, or get infected, etc).

Here is Evie after she had some yogurt and I fixed her hair:

The hospital had some local celebrities visiting the children today. As luck would have it, both Francis and I were gone when Evie got her special visitor. Nana and Grandpa Cermak were there though, to give a warm hello to none other than Bill Rancic (winner of The Apprentice season 1). Evie loved him! She was full of happy sounds and they looked at her pictures of Gavin. Too bad we missed it, so no photos.

I have to add a note about Gavin. He and Evie both had about 5 words in their speech repertoire as of this spring. But since early June, he has been saying about 4 new words per week. And since Thursday, he has said four new words PER DAY! Everyone told us that one day there would be a "language explosion," and here it is during the week he has an ear infection and Evie is hospitalized.