ABIGAIL NEWTON SMITH

Saturday, 5th January 2002 - Day 142

Welcome back everybody, today has been quite a good day for me, as the doctors said that my oxygen had come down enough for me to be allowed back on to my Low Flow tubes for short periods. I am allowed 2 hours on Low Flow and 10 hours on CPAP, small but at least it is a start. You do not know what a relief this is to a small little thing like me, it is like going from a room in the centre of the motorway to a room in the Northern Scottish isles, peace an tranquility all around.

Overnight my oxygen requirement has continued to drop such that I am now regularly down in the 30% range and have been down as low as 34%, I average around 37% to keep my oxygen saturations up. These Xeroids must be good.... I was allowed out for a cuddle with Daddy, because yes you guessed it Mummy is still not well and cannot cuddle me for fear of infecting me again. My Low Flow was set at 750cc per minute, and early on in my time out I was down at 500cc per minute which is as low as I have ever really been. I wonder if these Xeroids would have helped me out before ????

Obviously I hated having my CPAP put back on and made this quite clear to the nurses and Mummy and Daddy. Just in case they thought I liked it and want to keep me attached to that horrible pipe, in my opinion small is beautiful, small pipes good (Low Flow), big pipes bad (CPAP). I am now strong enough and big enough that I am able to move around my incubator (room) whilst I thrash about trying to get my CPAP out of my nose. It was one of my nurses, Jess's, birthday yesterday so happy birthday to her. She is a bit older than me but I am catching up...

Today has been a bit of a "Day of the Tubes", I must have had so many put down into my tummy, that they will need to be growing more outside. Every time the nurses put one down I pull it out, I managed 3 this evening whilst Mummy and Daddy visited. Mummy and Daddy have also begun to notice that I am smiling every so often, they think it is at them, but i can tell you it really wind, which tickles me every so often and makes me smile.... They tell me it is good though so that is good..

So overall today, I have been a good little girl for Mummy and Daddy and managed to get my oxygen down really well, lets keep things crossed that we can get rid of the horrible pipes soon...

Last Updated : 09/01/02.