Bea's Medical Update

Greetings Team Beatrice Fans,

To say the least, Bea (and her parents) had a huge day yesterday. She surmounted her two major "mid-term" goals by having her right chest tube removed and changing over from the oscillator to a regular ventilator. We didn't expect either of these things to happen for a week or more, so Bea is truly marching to own speedy beat. Chest x-rays show that, so far, she is not re-accumulating significant fluid in her chest cavity. We hope this trend continues or she will likely need another chest tube inserted. She seems to be doing well on the ventilator and is making great efforts to do a lot of the breathing on her own. Doctors hope they can begin to ween her off the ventilator in the next few weeks. In the transition from oscillator to ventilator, Bea finally visited the scale and weighs in at 2 lbs 14 ounces. Bea is our incredibly shrinking baby right now as she continues to expel the extra fluid from her body and skin (almost 2 lbs of excess fluid!). We are so excited to see her little ribs and wrinkles.

Bea also had a visit yesterday from the surgical team, who performed a test to see whether she would need surgery to repair her esophagus. It turns out that her esophagus is normal- so no surgery! Let's see, what else? The surgeon inserted a feeding tube down to Bea's stomach and they hope to begin feeding her soon. She'll receive a special high protein formula for a week or two before transitioning over to breast milk, which is now bursting out of our freezer. Other than all this, Bea is still on a delicate combination of drugs and antibiotics and her blood gasses are closely monitored. We marvel at the team working with her. If all goes well today, they will move her into an incubator, which, ironically, is where the healthier babies are.

Finally, we capped off the day yesterday with something Bea's mommy and daddy thought was, if ever possible, weeks away. It took a team of three, but they were able to move Bea (tubes, IVs and all) so her mommy could hold her. It was the most amazing experience we've ever had. She snuggled right in and snoozed away while her mommy and daddy cried their eyes out.

Here's to Bea.

-Carol (on behalf of Team Beatrice)