Beep. Beep.

Beeeeeeeep beeeeeeep beeeeeeep! Oh, wait, sorry. I guess I got caught up in all the ambiance here at the hospital. I swear I'm going to be hearing beeping for the rest of my life, even when we get home. One big difference between the NICU and the PICU is that NICU nurses stay close by and the beeps are silenced within a minute or less. PICU nurses disappear for hours on end, and the beeping is generally ignored. For instance, about 30 minutes ago I saw Callie's nurse for the first time in about three hours. She said "Oh her feeding pump is almost empty, I'll go get some milk ready... And now we're going on 10 minutes of the pump beeping profusely saying it's empty and there's no one in sight. So yeah, the beeping goes on, and on, and on, and on. Aren't I crazy enough as it is? No need to be driven there :) On top of that, I swear its a hundred degrees in here!

I told you in the last post I hoped for some good news to report, and we have some! Callista was taken off the ventilator Thursday afternoon and instead of going to the cPap, she did so well on her own that they switched her over to high flow oxygen instead. Once she had the tube out, the poor thing slept all day trying to recover. Friday she was an entirely different baby. She was opening her eyes more, chattering a little, and trying to cough on her own. She hasn't been swallowing or coughing up anything on her own since we got here. By Saturday they took her off high flow oxygen and now she's just on regular oxygen. So many steps in the right direction, it's kind of scary. Today she's been wide awake and "talking" to everyone. Grandpa K got to hold her today and she was in love! (I think Grandpa might be as well...) She stared and stared at him lol. So in a matter of a week we went from bad to worse to awesome. What the heck is going on here??

Our neurosurgeon is being very cautious right now, just waiting to see if we do in fact need to do a decompression surgery. At this point, she still doesn't swallow on her own and she does need oxygen to keep her stats up so we're still a far way away from coming home. And we're still in the realm of probably having to do the surgery. But the doctor knows what he's doing and we trust him. So we'll continue to wait and see.

We'll take this tiny pieces of good news as though they're mountains of good news because it's been so long since we've had something to be happy about. Every day it seems she is getting a little stronger (and chubbier, she's 7lbs 14oz now!). I am so thankful that it finally feels as though someone is listening to my prayers and the prayers of everyone who supports Callie. For awhile, my faith was shaken to the point of not having any. We truly needed this sign.