1 Week After Birth

Hi all,

Today was a busy one! We went to see Mya at Sick Kids first. The first thing we immediately noticed was that her breathing tube was out! I guess they decided to pull it out to see how she would take it, and so far, so good! Mom and I will be going back for a quick visit tonight, so hopefully the tube will be out - she sure looks a lot more comfortable without it. The head ultrasound that was supposed to happen on Monday ended up happening today. The wife and I (Hi Lois!!!!!) spoke with a doctor about it, and they basically told us that nothing has changed from the first one. However, this was a different doctor than the one that originally broke the news to us on Tuesday. Man, did she ever have a different perspective on things. While Mya's situation with her brain is still very grave, she certainly put things into perspective. There is still bleeding in the brain that will almost definitely lead to some kind of learning difficulties, but the other issue (that the doctor on Tuesday said was a certainty) is definitely not the case. In laymans terms, basically the ultrasound is picking up a brightness that is hinting at the existense of a cyst (which we never knew about), but it has not been confirmed that this cyst exists. This won't become conclusive for about another 4 weeks or so. They gave us a 50-70% chance that this cyst will be evident and everything else we were told on Tuesday would be true. However, that leaves us with a 30-50% chance that this 'brightness' will turn out to be nothing....while not great percentages, certainly better than the 0% we were given on Tuesday. We were also originally told that next week we were going to have some "difficult" decisions to make regarding some ethical issues on performing the heart surgery on Mya, as this would worsen the brain issues. I mentioned this to the doctor today, and she said there is no way that can even be talked about right now until everything is for certain.

As things stand right now, we simply have to take things one day at a time. However, the news and outlook regarding Mya certainly looks better than it did before! From Sick Kids, we were off to Mt. Sinai to see Alyssa. This girl of ours is eating like a pig and pooping like one! She is her daddy's little girl. As of tonight, they have bumped her up to 18ml of breast milk every 2 hours, taken her OFF the IV, AND also graduated her to the Level II nursery!!! For those of you who don't know the difference between the Level III and Level II, the Level II consists of more stable babies, where there is one nurse to approximately every 3 to 4 babies. In the Level III, we have one nurse to one baby. Alyssa's next steps are to master the sucking and swallowing lessons. Once she has her PhD in this, she will be ready to head home with Mom & Dad! We were given a best-case scenario of 4-6 weeks.

All in all, a good day in Toronto for the McCulloch family! Who knows what tomorrow will bring...stay tuned!

Love Lindsay & Craig