Day 34 at the Cleveland Clinic: Life in the PICU

Once again I sit in this tall backed chair in room M43-11 of the Cleveland Clinic PICU by my child's crib side wondering when my beautiful baby girl will be able to return home. She is still recovering from pneumonia and is on antibiotics. She is still on the ventilator and is receiving lots of sedation medicine so she will remain calm, cool, and collected. Her heartrate in the teens, her blood oxygen levels in the 90's. She hangs on another day fighting for her life. All the while we hang on to the hope that the doctors here can fix her heart problem little by little, one day at a time. I long to hold her, feed her, and care for her as I did what seems like so long ago. Our house has not been the same without her sweet little face and needy little cry echoing through the rooms. Her big sister Gwynny struggles with this change in her life sometimes acting out to seek the attention she is so desperately missing from mommy and daddy. The guilt I feel at times is heart wrenching. How can I spread myself thin enough to go around for everyone. I pray to God to give me the strength I need to go forward another day. He is faithful. I will be patient and wait holding on to his promise of a better tomorrow. Lily returns to the cath lab tomorrow morning for yet more proding and probing to somehow open a new door to the mystery behind why she is unable to tolerate her leaking mitral valve. Tomorrow can't come fast enough.