Labor Day Delays

Well, its Labor Day, and the only labor that's performed at the hospital are emergencies. So Whitney isn't exactly considered an emergency anymore since she's doing so well. In fact, she's doing so well, that she probably can come home any day now. But the only person who can make that decision is her primary doctor, who has today's holiday off. So we're waiting until tomorrow to get another update as to when they think Whitney will be able to come home. The nurses all think she will be home by Friday this week. But its never 100% for sure, of course.

The question is if she will go home on oxygen or not, we don't want her on oxygen, but if that's what she needs to stay confortable, then we'll be glad to have it. Because there is still some minor pulmonary hypertention, the doctors have been discussing if they will want to trial Whitney on an anti-pulmonary-hypertention medicine called Sildenafil. This doesn't sound so unusual, until you learn that Sildenafil is also known by its more common trade name, Viagra. So they're considering putting our baby girl on Viagra! So Viagra apparently is good for more than just men suffering from erectile dysfuntion. I really couldn't believe it, so I did some internet research and found that some babies with pulmonary hypertention have been successfully treated using this drug. Of course, when its used for pulmonary hypertention, they can't call it Viagra, instead its called Revatio, but its an identical drug. This treatment was approved by the FDA in June 2005, so its still new. It still sounds weird to me. So I'm still hoping they won't have to give her anymore medicines if they're not necessary, but this was just one of the things they were talking to us about this past week.

Today I spent the morning cleaning up our place and getting it ready for Whitney. We also painted a nice big sign that says "Welcome Home Baby Whitney!" in our anticipation of her coming home soon. We're all getting really excited for her big homecoming which we really hope happens this week!