You know when you're actually doing okay, (or at least you *think* you are) until someone asks you if you are okay, and only then do you realize you are just hanging on by a thread? Yeah, that was me today. First the nursing coordinator came in and asked if I was doing okay. Then Britta's nurse. Then the social worker. Each time I'd answer that yes, I was doing fine. I'd try to convince myself, and the person asking that it was really true. And each time, the tears would brim over and I'd realize that I wasn't as strong as I thought.

The social worker pressed the most. She asked what was wrong. What was worrying me so much? If I had a specific fear about Britta's recovery? If it was more of a gut feeling?

That last one got me, and I finally admitted the words I'd been so afraid to think to myself, much less speak to someone else:

I'm still afraid that I'm going to lose her.

I don't know that even after she is fully recovered and home with us again that that fear will ever go away. I hope it does. I hope it at least diminishes enough so I don't choke up every time I walk past the baby aisle at the store. Wondering what size clothes Britta will wear when I am able to dress her again. I want it to go away so that I don't fall asleep each night picturing her the afternoon we took her to the hospital and she coded.

I've heard about how the brain will often block out memories that are too bad. How you won't be able to remember them no matter how hard you try. I don't know why that couldn't happen to that memory. I don't want it.

Britta had an okay day today.

She was weaned off of the nitric in the vent. They will start to very slowly wean the oxygen now. Her little lungs are still so weak from the weeks at home when she was silently working so hard, but she is stable. If they are able to wean her successfully from the vent, it will probably be 3 or so days from now. They are doing a very, very slow wean. They removed another chest tube this morning, so that's one last tube or line in her! Yay for small victories! :) They have completely stopped her feeds, she just cannot tolerate them right now, her stomach is too weak. They have tried and stopped twice, and as of now, have no orders to restart them. We'll see once she is off of the vent if she tolerates them a bit better by then. They upped her lasix, she is really hanging on to a lot of fluid. Yesterday, she had a consult with the opthamologist. One of her eyes was blood shot after surgery and it has progressively gotten worse. The doctor had good news that it is just a superficial blood vessel and will clear up on it's own. Other than that, there isn't a whole lot of change. She still isn't awake, we catch a few tiny glimpses of her eyes here and there, but she is too tired to hold them open.