Day +58: a light at the end of the tunnel?

Mina Brigitta had another beautiful day today, and I got to spend most of it with her. She asked about Zeedie today, but then offered "Zeedie byebye!" and "Zeedie home!", showing me for the first time how well she understands the routine here. Then she kept asking about Momma's Momma, or "Mom-momma" for short. When she finally arrived mid-afternoon and peeked through the glass door, Mina broke out into a sly grin. She was shy for, oh, about five minutes, but after that they were laughing and giggling away. Lyn was very happy to see Mina looking so well; the last time she was here was the day they took us down to the ICU and Mina was covered with an angry red rash.

The rash is almost completely healed up on her arms now, and looking much better on her upper legs. She's still getting new, very small marks on her lower legs, but they don't seem to be doing much so no one is very worried about them. Her bilirubin and other liver function tests were stable today. That's the sign they were looking for, and if they start to go back down over the next couple of days we'll be able to stop worrying about liver disease. And her gut seems to be slowly healing -- every day she's eating a little more and pooping a little less. Today she asked for food about every two hours, but we had a hard time finding food that she actually wanted to put in her mouth. She ended up eating about two and a half of the little boxes of Cheerios with lactose-free milk. She also had some white bread with jam, a few bites of noodles and about half a jar of baby pears. And some green Gatorade, which she's been drinking every day. She's been off the IV nutrition since mid-day Friday now, and she's lost about a kilogram (2 lbs.). At this point most of that is probably fluid, but she'll need to start eating more soon or else they'll want to put in a feeding tube.

Today was the first day that made me think we might actually get out of the hospital at some time in the not-so-distant future. She's not like her old self yet, but she's getting there. She's pretty solemn most of the day, but sometimes that grin breaks through, and when I hear her giggle it just about brings tears to my eyes. And the nurses' eyes too, actually. We went out into the hallway again for a walk, and she pushed her babies in the stroller a little bit. She's still kind of wobbly, though, and not particularly energetic, so she was kind of going through the motions. The doctors are talking about starting to switch her meds from IV to oral, which is a necessary precondition to going home. We'll see how things go over the next few days.