I was on such a high last night after Erin took her first walk and I came crashing down this morning. Upon arrival we found out that Erin had vomitted three times overnight and was minutes away from her fourth. Not fun on any day, much less after everything she has gone through. Her hourly breathing therapy declined dramatically today, some hours being unable to complete the ten breathes. This was really frustrating because she had been rockin’ these exercises for days. On top of that her last chest tube, after producing very little drainage early Sunday evening, had been producing quite a bit of drainage ever since her walk, meaning it STILL wasn’t ready to come out. The chest tube had also been causing quite a bit of pain. They ended up stopping her night time feeds at midnight in preparation for her bronchoscopy today at 11:00. In typical hospital fashion, she ended up finally going down at 4:00 (5 hours later!) for the procedure, so nothing to eat or drink all day today. Argh! Thankfully her weight is stable. They took 6 biopsies of her new lungs to look for any signs of rejection. They were also able to suck out some mucus in her new lungs. She will repeat this surgery at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months and then every 3 months after that. They also decided to take the last chest tube out while she was sedated, SURPRISE! Even though the drainage continues, they are hoping to treat that issue with diuretics. They were much more worried about an infection if the tube stayed in and they weren’t happy with the amount of pain she was in. Erin really didn’t have much energy today and didn’t look good again, but after the bronch and chest tube removal she seemed to be in less distress. Her blood sugars still need some tweaking. By the end of the evening though she looked a lot more comfortable than she had in a couple days. The earliest we will get out of the hospital is the middle of next week. She is doing good but they need to get her sugars under control and monitor any build up of fluid. She even pushed herself to go on 2 small walks despite the fact she could barely keep her eyes open today. Such unbelievable strength.

I’m having trouble uploading the video, so if you want to watch Erin’s first walk post transplant go to our Facebook page ‘COTA Fundraising for Team “Carin’ for Erin”.