abcdefghijklmnoPEE!

We have pee!  I'm remaining cautiously optimistic, because her urine output has increased and then dropped off to zero in the past (like, five days ago), but from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, Bonnie's sweet little kidneys cranked out 65cc of pee!  The nephrologist said he needed her to make 100cc in 24 hours in order to stay off dialysis, so if she keeps up her current rate of production, all should be well.

The dialysis situation is this:  Despite being on the paralytic (vecuronium), which was supposed to help her stay still enough not to knock the dialysis catheter out of whack, the catheter quit working sometime yesterday.  The only solution left is for the surgeon to replace it, which comes with a lot of risks (which is why they were trying so hard to make the current one work).  The plan as of last night was for the surgeon to put in a new catheter this morning.  However, overnight Bonnie started responding to the Lasix they were giving her, so she bought herself another day off dialysis.  If she keeps up with the peeing, hopefully we can officially stop worrying about her kidneys.

The big event for tomorrow is for the surgeon to close the incision from her hernia repair.  They left it open to prevent an increase in her intra-abdominal pressure (which wasn't unlikely given her tendency to retain fluid) after surgery.  Anyway, tomorrow they'll close her up.  Shouldn't be a big deal.

Since Bonnie's not currently on dialysis, they took her off the paralytic, so today she was moving around some and looking around a lot.  Very cute.  We've missed her eyes for the past few days.  Her blood gases also seemed to improve with her being able to move, and her ventilator settings were weaned a bit.  Yay lungs!

Overall it was a very good day for baby Bee.  We are thanking the Lord for the increase in urine output today--it seems that those complicated and mysterious tubules are starting to come back to life. Please pray for continued improvement in her kidney function so we can get the dialysis pump out of her room and the dialysis catheter out of her groin!  Please also continue to pray for Bonnie's lungs.  Her x-ray still looked good today, and she's only on 30% oxygen on the ventilator, so she's actually doing quite well.  But please pray that she can make steps toward coming off the ventilator.  What a glorious day *that* will be. :)