12-31

Well your prayers were quickly answered last night.  We got some good rest, my feet returned to a more normal size, and Jonathan's stomach is getting better bit by bit.  Now you have a new assignment.  Penelope's blood sugar spiked today to a level that the doctors here have never seen.  A normal high number is around 200-300. Hers got up to 1948. They caught it quickly and were able to treat it quickly, but it's still at 630 now after 8 hours of treatment.  It's important for it come down slowly, so the doctors are happy with this progress, but it's still very very high for our tiny little girl.  The endocrinologist said that they caught it very early and that that was good. He'll be coming by tomorrow to talk with us about what happened and I guess about what we need to do about it.  There is a chance of neurological problems due to extremely high glucose but we won't know any details about this for a very long while.  For now we just need to pray that her levels will come down slowly and that they figure out what caused this spike so it won't happen again.

Penny had a big day all around.  She also got a blood transfusion today (after the blood sugar spike so it was unrelated) to replace all of the blood they've been taking out for tests and such.  Babies don't make their own blood until (I think) 36 weeks gestation so she was running a bit low.  Her color definitely shows the difference! She's pink again!  Because they were going to be giving her the transfusion, they went ahead and drew the large amount of blood needed for the chromosomal testing for Turner's Syndrome. These results won't be back for a few weeks but I'm glad it's in process now.  On a good note for Penelope, her head ultrasound showed that she had no brain bleeds (a common preemie complication) so way to go her!

We also just got a little bit of encouragement from her Neonatalogist that is on call tonight about the possibility of getting the girls back together. She said all we can do is ask and if we get a "no" then we get a "no" but it's worth trying.  She is going to be our primary doctor for next week so she said she'd get the ball rolling on looking into that.  Even if it doesn't work out, it's such a blessing that she'd be willing to take the extra time to do that for us.

Precious little Lydia is doing just fine.  I guess she's being a gracious big sister and letting Penny have the spotlight for now.  She is doing well, gaining weight, and eating well.  We spend a little bit of time with her this afternoon and each got to hold her again.  Such sweet time.  She is still having some minor apnea and de-sat (lowered O2 saturation) episodes and her PDA isn't closing very quickly so don't leave her out of your prayers!

Ok, I think that's it for now. Keep up the good work with those prayers!