August 8th & Tonight

August 8th was not what we thought it would be back in May and early June. At that time, of course, we were scheduled to have Audra's Hemi on the 8th. But as you know, we got this out of the way in June. So August 8th came and went like any other day.

It was actually a rather hectic day including our older daughter getting herself out of her crib. But we did not have to get over to Mott early in the morning and even better, we are not there now. We are very thankful to have this behind us.

We have been working on feedings with Audra and she seems to be improving overall. We are looking into a tube weaning program that will help us through Audra's dependency on her feeding tube. We hope to get the thumbs up from our cardiologist. We hope to talk with her on Monday.

Tonight there is a bit of unease in our house. We are always "keeping on eye" on this or that but tonight Audra had a flag that is really making me worry while my husband tries to keep me calm. She was sweaty when he went to put her down. This can be one of the symptoms of congestive heart failure. But it could just be that she was just hot while she was being held. We took her temp and it isn't high now. She has gained a fair amount of weight over the past few weeks, which if it is fluid retention is another symptom. But she is not showing signs of retaining fluid and our home care nurse even mentioned that fact on Tuesday. Audra just seems to be growing well. Her breathing is normal, which is very important and another symptom it she had an increased breathing rate. And there are not any other symptoms either.

Congestive heart failure is when the heart can no longer pump enough blood to the body. We are always supposed to be on the lookout for any symptoms. It builds gradually and the first steps to treat it are with medicines. We will talk to our cardiologist on Monday to see what she thinks. Audra is already getting her blood drawn on Monday so maybe the doc will add another test that gives us some more info. Then again, maybe I am worrying over nothing and it is just hot in here. Ugh. I hate worrying.