Rough night inside and out

We got quite the winter storm last night - here in Bellingham we got about 1 inch of snow, but it drifted making a few inches where the wind blew it.  We had serious winds and bone chilling temps through the night and today it's still windy and very cold - it's in the low 20's and with the wind chill it feels more like less than 10 degrees (F).  Here's what it looked like from my hospital window last night:



And this morning the sun is shining, but the flag is out straight in the wind - not all the time though, the wind comes and goes and changes directions all the time.


While it's beautiful, and I usually love the snow, the prospect of trying to get Esther to Children's with it looking like this outside is a bit concerning.  Today it's supposed to snow some more until early afternoon, then clear up.  Tomorrow and Tuesday are clear and cold, followed by several days of snow.  So we have this window of getting her down there.

Last night I didn't get much sleep.  It was 11:30 before I got to lay down to sleep, and then at 2 am I was up with Esther for a while.  Then I slept until 6 am and got up for get her feeding going and give her her medications.  She woke up so I held her for about an hour (got a few smiles and even got her smiling while I was videotaping her - first smile recorded in video).  She then fell back to sleep for another hour and I talked with our pastor and watched the weather forcast on TV, called home and made some plans for today.

I have not been able to get anything purchased for our kids for Christmas yet, for some strange reason! So if Esther stays here today, then Daryl and Jessica are going to come down here around 3 and Jessica will stay with Esther while Daryl and I go shopping and get that out of the way.

I was really not pleased with how hard and fast Esther was breathing this morning, so I asked for the respiratory therapist to come take a look at her.  She did some deep suctioning with a suctioning catheter and did get quite a bit of "stuff" out of her nose, but when all was said and done, Esther was still retracting a lot, breathing with noise, and nasal flaring badly which has me concerned as she should be doing better with this many Lasix doses.  The doctor called for new exrays, and they show her lungs are dryer and her liver is smaller - all signs that she's not going into heart failure right now and that lasix is doing it's job.  So it those are better, why is she working so hard???  One possibility is that she's picked up a new virus, and he's now sure what else it could be.  So he's ordered a blood gas test to see if her that's OK, and he's ordered a breathing treatment that should help.  It looks like her lungs are over inflated - she's drawing in air well, but it's not all leaving - this is common with asthma, RSV, bronchitus and such - restricted airways.  We should have those results quickly and with the blood gas results and how she responds to the breathing treatment, he'll call the cardiologist at Children's and see what they want to do with her.  Dr Thompson, I think, is leaning towards transporting her down there today, just in case this is the beginning of a turn for the worse that they can handle better at Children's than they can here.

I'll update as soon as I know anything, if we are staying here, or if there's time before we leave, if we are leaving.

I've been weepy today, so pray for me that I can lean on Jesus, and feel His care and compassion through this time of waiting and watching.