Here is a summary of our day:
-Evin had a good night last night. She slept all night and stayed comfortable with the help of pain meds.
-This morning her chest x-ray looked good and she had clear lung sounds.
-Evin was extubated today! They took the breathing tube out around 11:00am. She is currently on a tiny bit of oxygen through a nasal cannula.
Minus the tube, plus the cannula. Looks much better!
-Much of the day today was spent finding a good balance with her pain meds. They want her to be comfortable, but not so comfortable that she is forgetting to breathe on her own. If she is too out of it, her oxygen saturation starts to drop (I'm talking low 90's, not drastically low) and they want her to be at 95 or above.
-There were some stressful Mommy and Daddy moments today because we want so badly to be able to comfort our babe when she is fussy or showing any signs of pain. The easiest way to comfort her is to hold her, and we can't do that just yet because of the chest tube that is still in place. We did a lot of patting, hair stroking, singing and shushing today. We take turns going to eat, so one of us is with her at all times.
-They removed her central line around 3:00pm. This was in her neck, so she appears to be a little more comfortable now even though she has an IV on the other side of her neck. One less line is definitely progress!
-She started waking and acting hungry this afternoon so she guzzled almost 2 ounces of Pedialite followed by an ounce of breastmilk. She was gulping so fast, we knew she was taking in air, and she ended up with a belly ache. We waited several hours before letting her have 2 more ounces of breastmilk, and she seemed to tolerate it just fine.
Excited to give Evin her first post-surgery bottle.
-She is only on 2 meds through IV right now, and both of them should be turned off by morning.
-Evin is still pretty swollen- more swollen than they (and we) would like her to be, particularly in her hands and feet. They have been giving her Lasix as a diuretic, but they will probably give her another type of diuretic to see if that helps. We wonder if her body might have adjusted to the Lasix since that is what she gets every 12 hours at home, so it isn't responding to it as much as it should.
-They removed the bandage covering her incision and currently just have a little flap of padding halfway covering it.
-The surgeon and another doctor checked on Evin and they said that most of her tubes and wires should come out tomorrow and they are hoping to move us out of the PICU and to the cardiac floor tomorrow afternoon as long as her swelling goes down. We certainly wouldn't be opposed to this happening that quickly, but we aren't rushing Evin and want to make sure she is ready.
Evin continues to amaze us with her progress. We are praising God as Evin prepares to show us how big and strong she can grow.
Terrible photo quality- an iPhone pic and it was dark- but she really started opening her eyes this evening and night. Hi, sweet girl!
one strong girl
+
an amazing medical team
+
more prayer warriors than we could have imagined
+
A Gracious and Almighty God
=
a successful surgery & recovery so far!
So glad she is healing! Still praying!
ReplyDelete