Thursday, May 24, 2007

Pictures of Raeghan at Arkansas Children's Hospital !

Raeghan in the room, playing with all her balloons ready to go home ! Raeghan was admitted on May 15th, 2007 til May 23rd, 2007 at the Arkansas Children's Hospital on 4 Med under the wonderful care of Dr. Matt Jaeger, Dr. Yancy Craft and Dr. Lee. She was admitted with pneumonia, started on 2 different antibiotics, was placed on oxygen and pulseox monitoring the first night admitted and was found to have a pleural effusion ( fluid next to the chest wall ) the following am (5/16/07 ) where we had a chest tube placed by the radiologist and it drained for 5 days while having chest xrays daily and medicine flushed into the drainage to help thin the drainage. It was found to be step. pneumonia and one antibiotic was stopped. She continued to SLOWLY get better and was having 1-2 fevers a day still on the drugs. They called in the Infectious Disease MD's for all evaluation, and she was placed back on a second antibiotic. Thankfully only twice did she need a new IV, and the day after the 2nd once went back we went home on yet a different antibiotic. Went home 5-23-07 ! We can't thank the staff at ACH so much for everything. The nursing staff on 4 Med are the bomb ! We love you Lisa, Ashley, Julie, Carol, Jessica, Charity, Chris, Shelia, Linda, Brandi, Angie, David and anyone else we forgot ! All the radiology staff, and respiratory staff, the STAT team members and the housekeepers !!
Raeghan is free of all tubes and now smiling again ! Note the bandage on the left hand, that is only added by her to keep a bandaid from falling off !

Raeghan with her favorite nurse Lisa ! Sorry Lisa, told you I was going to add it to the blog, you are warned ! You made my stay so manageable and you held my hand so many times ! Love you always, will send you some pics of the girl !


Raeghan and Brandi, the PCT are turning on the pulseox machine together to a check on Raeghan's O2 levels.



Raeghan only let me the entire time take her temperature and blood pressure. As she got well, we had to take the tip off the thermometer and place it back in the machine and when doing her BP, she always gave me her "Best leg" and then had to take the cuff off everytime. You could see little Ms. Independent come back as she got well. What a blessing it was !




Raeghan showing off her wound site ! No more chest tube ! Yah !!





Raeghan in bed with all her new toys ! Thanks so much to all of you who called, visited, sent presents and delivered food ! Eating in the hospital can be expensive ! Even her classmates at daycare sent her a card and her teacher, Ms. Ashley came to see her !





Raeghan finally feeling better, had a teacher at ACH, Ms. Vicki come see her and they played with her favorite, Play Dough ! Note Raeghan's hair to the side sticking up, that is not a pony tail ! It really is her hair sticking up on it's own ! The entire back of her head was one big tangle ! She hadn't had a bath in 2 weeks, and had sweat and medicine in her hair ! She got to go no Wednesday to Ms. Vicki's classroom to play for a little too !







Raeghan with one of her favorite doctor's, Dr. Matt Jaeger. We found out yesterday too, that he is Catholic like us ! When Raeghan was so sick the first few days, we contacted our church and they got a local priest come and he gave her the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick !








Raeghan in the red wagon, you can see the chest drainage box in front of her, the fluid collects in the columns on the right, and drains to the left. Her total drainage was around 1500cc out. In the room, the box is hooked to suction, it bubbles all the time and slowly pulls the fluid in her chest into the box through a small drain in her called a Pig Tail ! On the weekend the radiologist, Dr. Moore who came to see us, recognized us from church, another Catholic and she was pregnant with her 2nd son !









This is the entire set up that she had attached to her ! Chest tube, oxygen, IV fluids and pulseox machine ! They said she needed to sit up more and get out of the room, so on this day she was kind of forced by me to go for a ride. She liked getting out of the room eventually. The tube hurt her often !










Slowly one day at a time she's eat a little, here she is with some sherbert. Amazing what you can do one handed, she even pulled the lid off by herself ! Note her tattoo on her arm, by the end of the stay she had one on her forehead, one on her arm, one on her leg. If you walked near her, she tattooeed you too ! Thanks Barb for tattoos !











This was the first time she sat up ! Sissy offered to do her makeup and she was excited !












Grandma was so happy to see her girl, here they are reading a book about pandas ! Grandma was so worried about her girl ! She visited us every day and called ! Riley got to visit every other day, and Rebekka came almost every day and stayed several nights. Shelbie, big cousin stayed one night too ! We had lots of people praying for Raeghan !













Finally a picture of me and Raeghan with her "Big Silly Green JellyBean " doing her breathing exercises ! This is to help her lungs to work better by blowing, it all also makes her cough, they want her to do this ! It is amazing how the staff here at ACH gets to the kid's levels !!!
Will never forget Dr. Jaeger squatting on the floor to peek around the corner of her bed to make her smile, or silly Dave the night nurse, wearing a pull up on his head !
I am glad to be home and so greatful Raeghan is recovery !
Please continue to pray for Raeghan and PLEASE HELP BRING RACHAEL HOME !
The LOI is sent for her, and we are eager to add the final peanut to the family !
God bless, Charlotte

1 comment:

Ohilda said...

Charlotte,

I just read that Raeghan is home! Praise God!!!! Glad to hear that she is doing so much better. Now get back on track to bring her baby sister home! :)

Hugs!