Kindred Hospital is going well

Hi everyone,
Britney had a really good night. She was flexing her arms up to her face again and almost pulled off the ventilator tubing multiple times. The people at Kindred are great. The Dr. who took care of her at TMC in the ICU back when she first got sick came to Kindred to take care of her. His group comes there also. He told everyone in his group that he wanted to come take care of her. It totally made my day. He was instrumental in saving her life has been following along on the blog for the past 6 weeks. Thanks Dr. Toiber. Talk to you soon.
John

Britney is going to the acute rehab hospital in a few hours. We are really excited. She moved so much yesterday she is very tired today. Yesterday also after I posted Britney lifted her head and arms off the pillows and opened her mouth like she was trying to say something but couldn't. Her trach makes all the air go out below her vocal cords so she can't make any noise. When she couldn't get a sound out she started to cry. I talked to her and stroked her hair and she calmed down. This happened about 10X yesterday. She is in there still and coming back to us.

More movements

I just got back from the hospital and wanted to give an additional update for the evening. Britney was getting some gases building up in her stomach, so they took her off the feeding tube tonight. She seemed very awake and full of movement most likely due to the discomfort in her stomach. She was far more active than Jessah or I have ever seen! With a lot of effort she managed to move both her hands from down at her sides to up near her face. She was even pivoting one of her wrists quite a bit. I thought I caught her staring at her hands, but wasn't sure if it was on purpose. A minute or two later I asked her to look at the green grip in her hand to see if she'd do it again. She couldn't seem to, so I asked her to follow my hand to try and lead her eyes back to the grip. She did it perfectly! For the next forty five minutes or so, Britney continued moving her hands around a ton and once accidentally disconnected her ventilator tube. She also stared at her hands again, that time without any coaxing. Eventually, her heart rate rose some and she became shakey and tense from exerting herself too much. She kept trying to lift her head off the pillow and was acting like she still had stomach pains. The nurse gave her some pain medication to calm her back down and within a few minutes she was breathing at a good pace and fell asleep. Have a good night everyone!

-Kenzie

Britney just moved both of her legs. She hasn't moved them since she has been off ECMO. There was a CT scan about that time that had showed a possible stroke in the leg territory of her brain, but now she is moving them!!!. Arielle stayed the night at the hospital last night and also saw her move her toes!!!!!!! Arielle read to her a lot yesterday and she looked at her and stayed awake the whole time she was reading to her. She also saw her smile when Arielle was singing to her last night.

Britney opened her eyes and looked at Anna when Anna smiled and cooed at her. She had another great day. I met with the people from Kindred hospital and went on a tour today with all the kids and Britney's sisters. It seems like a great place. They have a great staff with a lot of experience in critical care. They have lots of physical and occupational therapy. They said they can take Britney even with the chest tubes in. Britney may go there in the next few days.

Britney's feeding tube got put in today. It went really well. They used a camera in the stomach to shine a light on her abdomen so they could do it in her room. With the camera they saw her whole stomach and the beginning of her small intestine and it didn't have any ulcers. Lots of ICU patients commonly have ulcers from being bed ridden and sick for so long. Me and Jonas spent the day at the hospital. We read to her a lot and she opened her eyes every time we read to her. When her nurse was cleaning Britney's mouth Jonas told her it was ok and told her to open her mouth and she did. She was breathing fast in the afternoon and had to go back on the ventilator for a rest.

Britney had another really good day. She has been moving and tracking (following people with her eyes) a lot more. She heard Anna crying today and started moving alot. When I brought Anna to her Britney calmed down. I brought Anna to her and Britney calmed down and layed back down. The doctors and nurses are excited about the progress she is making. She is going to get a feeding tube tomorrow that will be put in her stomach from the outside. She has had a naso gastric (nose stomach) feeding tube for almost 3 weeks now, and needs something more permnant that wont irritate her nose. Medically she is doing very very well. One of her chest tubes got taken out today. Her air leak is almost better and she may get off all of her chest tubes in the next few days and not need any more surgery. She has been breathing great on her own during the day and resting on the ventilator at night. She will likely be going to Kindred hospital an acute rehab hospital that is much closer to our house in a few days.