Day 5 1/2

They'll be closing Shayna this afternoon and taking her off the paralytic right after.  She'll start waking up over the following 12-24hrs.  I'm happy to be well rested.  It took the full week of 8hrs a night to get there but I should be starting the hard part of my hospital stay with a good reserve as I'll be living in Shayna's room from now on.  This means that I won't be able to blog daily as I'll be spending much of Shayna's sleeping hours resting myself or showering and taking care of other daily necessities (like eating as I'm not allowed "open food containers" in the PICU).

Shayna is doing well.  No more fevers and she looks less and less like the Pillbury Dough Boy and more like scrawny Shayna with each day.  Her bilirubin is finally on the decline again (total had been 5.9, 8.6, and 10.7 over the last 3 days) at 8.0 this morning.  Her surgeon attributed the increase to swelling at the intestine-liver connection site (as it was a live donor and the live donor needed to keep his bile ducts a Kasai Procedure was performed).  As her ultra sounds showed good blood flow through the liver and all her other liver numbers continue to come down with each day, they also knew the liver was functioning well.  

We enjoyed a visit from Nahum yesterday.  I got to push my first wheel chair too, as he still has a long way to go before he regains his stamina.  He looked like me the first time I saw her after transplant.  In awe but not sure how to handle/touch her with all the tubes and wires coming off.  Hilary came back briefly after Nahum (we're only allowed 2 people at a time, me + guest, so the waiting room is heavily used).  She said Shayna sure looks cute, which is nice to hear since she's tubed up too.

This time tomorrow I might be feeding my baby.