Roller Coaster

Up and down, up and down. Maren's resting after a busy, busy day. She had a really good night last night. She peed a ton (thanks for your prayers) and everything else was pretty quiet. Once morning hit, though, she was acting up again. She's continued to pee well, but she spiked a fever. She also had weird stuff going on with her heart. A few times throughout the day her rate would jump up to 180-190, stay there for a while and then come back down to normal. When this happened her blood pressure would drop really low. Her doctors aren't sure why, but after playing around with her meds for a little while, she has settled down. We haven't seen any big changes in her blood pressure or heart rate for the last few hours.

We learned today that Maren's fenestration closed on its own. I don't understand Maren's heart enough to explain very well, but basically it's a small opening, left open on purpose, to help Maren adjust to her new heart. This is probably why she's had a rockier than normal recovery, but doctors want to wait it out and see if she can tolerate it being closed before rushing her into the cath lab to pop it back open.

So that's what we're doing-- waiting for Maren's body to get used to all this extra blood going to her lungs. We'll know this is happening when her heart rate and blood pressure are stable. In the mean time, we've painted our fingernails and our toes (something Maren would never let me do while she's awake.)

Thanks everyone for all your prayers for our family, and especially our sweet Maren. Thanks for all of the support. I'm running out of ways to say it, but we really, really, appreciate all of the love that we feel from all our family and friends out there. Thank you!!!

Here are a few pics:



Pretty fingers...


Pretty toes...


Pretty girl...