Wow, Ella is having a great day!

They have increased her feedings to 18ccs of Portagen per hour. She seems to be handling it fine. Each day they are weening her versed just a little bit, which is progress forward (this is her sedative medicine).

Urine output was high the last 24 hours at 343. Yet, her chest fluid output was so low yesterday – – only a total of 5.5ccs!!! We are hoping that this is a good sign. They have not taken another chest x-ray but expect that she will have one tomorrow. So far today, she has output 3ccs out of her chest tubes. We’re so hopeful that the fluid issue might be reducing slowly but surely.

Nurse Kelly is taking care of her. She went ahead and flipped Ella on her right side, which normally causes issues for her. Yet, Ella has not had any extra sedative or pain meds besides her drips since Friday afternoon. So, she is tolerating her right side today with saturations at 100/100. Plus, her last blood gas was excellent, pH=7.45, cO2=49, pO2=118.

As you can see below, we had quite the adventure yesterday with Uncle Rick and Cousin Megan. First, we went to the Florida Museum of Natural History and they were having a festival called Butterfly Fest, to celebrate butterflies. Megan made a butterfly flag and learned how to make an oragami crane. Then, we walked inside the museum to look at all the exhibits. The highlight was the Butterfly Rainforest. It was amazing to walk around a temperature controlled environment with hundreds of different butterflies. They were gorgeous!

After a nice dinner, we went hunting for alligators. We heard that they hang out at Lake Alice in the middle of the University of Florida. First, we walked up to one area and sure enough, a small gator was approaching us. We spent quite a bit of time there and then heard of another area to maybe find some others. On the way further down the road, we noticed a huge crowd gathered on the opposite side of the street. It was an agriculture area on the campus. At dusk time, within a few minutes, tons of bats flew out of this house! It was surreal…

From there, we went back across the street to Lake Alice. We saw some large, oversized turtles in the water. And after about 15 minutes, a much larger gator came to the edge of the land. I couldn’t believe that we had the opportunity to witness alligators so up close! Thus the title: “Butterflies, Gators, and Bats, oh my!”

Uncle Rick and Cousin Megan are leaving today, but we had a great time!