There isn’t much to report from Sunday, on the Piper front. Her doctors decided that it was a good idea to put her back on a paralytic today, because that is the only effective way that they have discovered, so far, to keep her from de-saturating. When she starts to wake up, even a little bit (even though she has been super-sedated) she is fighting the vent.

Reagan passed the time by catching up on TV. She finished her new book. I finished mine, too. I can definitely think of worse ways to spend a long weekend. Until today, the weather has been particularly mild, since Thursday. This has made for a very pleasant walk to and from the hospital, requiring only a hoodie to stay warm. That streak ended today, when we were instead greeted with sideways rain.

One thing that is nice, is that Piper has been on some meds to help her get all of the extra fluid out of her system. As a result, she has been a lot less puffy and is starting to resemble her normal self, a lot more.

It is going to be tough, this week to ease ourselves back into reality. As boring as it can be, hanging out in Piper’s room all day, it can also be very relaxing. It is super mellow, in there, when no alarms are sounding. Not to mention, the rhythmic sound of the vent can lull a person into a trance. Poor lil’ PJ. At least she seems to getting some solid rest.

Piper had a pretty uneventful day, Saturday. Being that she tends to become agitated and de-sat when she is awake, she was kept a bit more sedated. The doctors took another X-ray of her in the evening, which came back almost the same as it was Thursday. Although we would have liked to have had it clear up a little bit by now, there are a few other things that have indicated that she is at least moving in the right direction. One thing, is that her white blood cell count has come down. That generally means that her body isn’t having to battle the infection as hard anymore. We have also been told that her blood-gas readings are still becoming progressively better.

I can’t help but think how lucky we are to live within walking distance to one of the world’s best children’s hospitals. It is so amazing to be able to come home and sleep in our own beds, and know that if something crazy happened, in the middle of the night, we could be right there in 5 minutes. We are always so impressed with the way that Piper’s doctors and nurses at Columbia have treated her and us, during her time spent there. Truly, enough can’t be said to praise them for what they do.

These are also the times that we realize how incredibly fortunate we are, to have such amazingly supportive family and friends. Even though we are so far from our families, they have done an excellent job of letting us know that they are there for us (and would be here for us, in the flesh, if we so much as made the request).

Saturday night we took a break from the hospital and  spent some time with some of our friends, having dinner, and just hanging out for a bit. It was so nice to have a little bit of a break from hospital. It was also nice for both Reagan and myself to be able to talk to some people face to face, besides each other, or nurses and doctors. Heheheh. Not that we don’t love spending time together, and chatting it up. But I’m sure that you can imagine, the conversations have been pretty heavy for the last few days. It tends to wear a person out.

Thanks again for all of the thoughts, prayers and positive vibes.

An echocardiogram (not sure if that is how it is spelled) revealed that pulmonary hypertension, which Piper has historically suffered from, is not playing a factor in what is going on currently. In other words, the results revealed nothing abnormal with her heart, that the doctor believed wasn’t being caused by her pneumonia.  So, that is kind of good news. It is still tough to say if she is making any headway against the pneumonia. There have been a few indicators that suggest she is. One, is that her blood-gas tests have been making slow improvement. Is also seems like she has been a little big stronger.

The part about he feeling a little stronger is kind of a tough one, though. Since they have discontinued the paralytic, Piper can now move her hands and feet, when she is awake. She currently has to be restrained because of the amount of  lines that she is hooked up to. It could be pretty disastrous if she were to, for example pull out her arterial line or central line. As a result, she gets very frustrated when she is awake, which causes her to de-sat etc.. The only way to calm her down is to further sedate her. It is a frustrating cycle to watch. Hopefully she will start making some significant headway against the pneumonia and will not require as much support, so they can remove some of the more invasive lines.

Again, we are so grateful to everyone who has extended their support. We take a lot of comfort in the fact that Piper is so well loved and cared about. Thank you so much for all of the kindness.

^—-PJ all swollen up from her IVs, safe and sound back in NYC

We were able to get Piper back to Columbia, on Thursday. She arrived around 12:30 or so. It wasn’t a very smooth ride over. She had some blockage in her trache, and was having some bronchial spasms. She was generally in bad shape. When She arrived, the doctors worked on her for about 5 hours to get her stable. Part of this process included putting in a central line (which goes straight into her little heart), which was required so that they could safely give her the combination of medicine needed to stabilize her heart rate.

She has be be restrained, so that she doesn’t pull out her IVs or flip around in her bed. This drives her absolutely bonkers. That is a problem because every time that she started to gain consciousness, she would freak out and de-sat. So they have put her on a paralytic for now.

She is battling a super bad case of pneumonia. The only time that we have really ever seen her this sick, since she left the NICU, was in January of 2008, when she had to be put on the oscillating ventilation for a day.

She seemed to be moving in the right direction by the time that we finally decided to come home tonight. She was getting a blood transfusion, which should help with her saturation and with fighting the infection.

We have been so grateful to everyone who has called, texted, and left kind comments of support on FB and our blogs. We feel a lot of love and support. I’m sure that Piper must be feeling the positive vibes, as well.

^—Reagan on the phone with one of Piper’s nurses, in a different unit

Times like these remind me that we really are not the ones in control. It can be a pretty helpless feeling. It also amplifies the gratitude that we have for all of the knowledgeable and skilled people who show such compassion in our daughter and keen interest in her well being. When the transport guys from Columbia showed up today at St. Joes, to move Piper back, I was almost overcome with emotion to have someone there with Reagan and myself who has seen this whole journey of ours, basically from the beginning. It is so amazing how these people become as close as family. We have developed a very deep respect and trust from watching the way that they care for our little one that we love so much. There was also one of the PICU fellows who came along to make sure that Piper made the trip, ok.

We are hoping that her chest X-rays clear up soon, so that they can start scaling back all of the meds that she is currently requiring. Since her heart has been pretty stable for a few hours, they have already started cutting back the stuff that they were giving her for the blood pressure. Hopefully this trend will continue.

Again, we really can’t express enough gratitude for all of the kind words, positive thoughts, and prayers in Piper’s behalf.

We found out yesterday that Piper hadn’t been feeling too hot, since Monday night. They said that she was having respiratory distress, and would be sending her to Columbia, if she could’t stabilize by 8. We got a call shortly after 7 that she had worsened and that they had some parametics taking her to St. Joes in Paterson NJ, because they didn’t want to risk taking her all the way back to NY.

It is always tough to gauge exactly how sick she is, until we see her ourselves. When we arrived in NJ, we could tell that she was pretty sick. Her heart rate was high 180s, occasionally breaking 200. Luckily she started to calm down pretty quickly when they started to treat her in the ER. By the time they got her in the PICU, her breathing was under control and she was so tuckered out that she fell asleep.

They got her going on a full spread of antibiotics and are actually sedating her now. Normally I hate it when they sedate her, but she hates having so many IVs. So they have to restrain her little arms, so that she doesn’t tear them out. In this situation I think it is proabably a good idea that she is sedated. Because otherwise she would be pisssssed.

Hopefully we will be going back to Columbia, after the Dr.s round. Poor little squirt. She probably got sick because she was bummed that we were going to run off to VT for a fun weekend while she was stuck in the armpit of New Jersey. I can’t blame the little squirt.

I apologize if the formatting is a little off. I’m writing this from the B-berry.

I saw all of this ice that was collecting in the north cove marina, from my boss’s window Monday, when I was in his office. I decided to photograph it, Tuesday morning on my way in. The funny part? Apparently I wasn’t the only person I know, taking photos of floating ice in the Hudson.

I know that everyone has seen millions of comical examples of product packaging on products originating from Asian countries. Just the same, I cracked up at this one and couldn’t resist sharing it.

A few weeks ago, I ordered this nifty little LCD protector from Ebay, for the back of the 7D. As you can see below, I was able to install it pretty easily.

I attribute the ease of installation to the carefully worded “Use method” that I read on the back of the package.

Establishment is completion!

Sorry that I am kind obsessed with bridges, at the moment, because of the book that I’m reading. If you are sick of hearing about them, feel free to change the channel. I’m taking a break from blabbing about the Brooklyn Bridge for a minute to share this outstanding time-lapse video of the Manhattan Bridge. The Manhattan Bridge is situated just north of the Brooklyn Bridge, on the East River (for those non-NY-ers who are curious and too lazy to dial up a Google Maps search). I shot the image above during this outing, from the Brooklyn side promenade of the Bk Bridge. Brooklyn even has a neighborhood that is named for the Manhattan Bridge. It is called DUMBO as an acronym for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.” This video comes via a post that I saw in Animalnewyork.com, last July. The video below show the way that “the Manhattan Bridge sways up and down with each passing subway train.” Soooooo cool.

Ludacris! Yeah, man. It is about time that I threw some southern hip-hip into the mix. Whenever I hear southern rap, it reminds me of the good old days before Lil’ Jon came along and ruined it all-up with “Crunk.” I mean, we all thought that Crunk was going to be one of those timeless genres that our great-grandchildren could listen to, while they booty-pop at the school dance. Alas, it seems to have burned out as quickly as it originally came onto the scene. Rants aside southern hip-hop is hot.

Getting back to Luda: Reagan and I were actually having a discussion the other day, over sandwiches, about southern rap. It was about how when we hear albums like “Chicken-n-Beer” or Nelly’s “Country Grammar,” it just reminds us of simpler times. I also think that Luda was hilarious in “2 Fast 2 Furious.” Yes, I am admitting that I actually watched that movie (not that any females reading this didn’t watch it just to see Paul Walker and Tyrese looking hot and acting dumb). Ok, now for the real confession: I own that movie. Hahahaha. The image in this post is actually of Luda’s character from the movie.

I can’t say that I care for Lucacris’ entire body of work. For example “Move, get out the way” drove me absolutely insane.  Some of his songs, on the other hand, fall among the ranks of my favorite hip-hop jams. It is one of those songs that I’m sharing today. “Get back,” is the name of the track. It is from the 2004 album “Red Light District.” It is the edited version. You definitely need a sub, or some headphones with at least 50mm drivers to do the low end justice, on this track.  Click me to play.

I mentioned previously that I had recently started a new book about the conception and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. As it turns out, the bridge was the brainchild of the Prussian immigrant architect/engineer/genius named John Roebling. The construction was overseen by himself and his son Washington Roebling, who evidently was equally gifted. John actually passed away pretty early on in the construction phase, after complications related to an injury he sustained at the construction site.

Apparently, at the time, the majority of Brooklyn belonged to the democratic party. The political control seemed to lie predominantly with the Irish immigrants. John Roebling, in addition to all of his other attributes was a very strongly opinionated fellow. In Roebling’s opinion, the Irish democrats did not share his same strong feelings about the bridge. When they would walk off the job demanding higher pay, Roebling would fire them, and hire Germans immigrants, to replace them. While referring to this matter, Roebling once stated:

No democrat can be trusted, they are all disloyal and treacherous, more or less.

Hahahaha. To me, the best part about Roebling’s statement, is that I can think of a few prominent right wing talking heads who are still trying to push that generalization as fact. I’m pretty sure you know who I’m talking about.