24 Hours Later

Here were are, more than 24 hours after surgery and so far things are looking good. We were told yesterday by the doctor in CVICU that Caden would most likely be there for 48 hours and then moved back to NICU to complete his recovery. He said that if everything went perfectly smoothly, it was possible Caden could go home within 5-7 days.

Today, the word is that Caden is doing well, but he is not at the front of the pack in regards to a speedy recovery. The doctor is not at all concerned, but he said Caden was taking a little longer to respond than some babies do. He thought it was likely that he would remain in CVICU until Tuesday for sure and possibly even until Wednesday.

The situation right now they are dealing with is the fluid retention. Caden is quite puffy and isn't peeing it out as fast as they would like. And, they are having to tweak the ventilator frequently because they are trying to find the right balance for what works with both the left and the right lung since they have different volume currently.

Shortly after surgery, they did an abdominal ultrasound. There was some concern that Caden's abdomen looked a little distended. They wanted to make sure there wasn't any fluid in the abdomen causing that. But when they felt the belly, everything felt fine. They said they would continue to monitor it and if they thought he had fluid, they would have to put in a tube in the abdomen to drain it out. So far, they aren't worried about it and it appears to just be part of the overall puffiness.

The cardiologists were going to do an echo this evening to make sure everything looked good with the aorta where they repaired the coarc. We haven't heard anything from that, but assume that it looks good or they would have called us.

So, overall, Caden is stable and doing well, he's just not recovering rapidly and that's okay. They are keeping him pretty heavily medicated so he doesn't feel any pain or discomfort. And, tomorrow they might start giving him some Pedialyte through a tube to see how his bowels can tolerate food. If he does well with that, they might be able to start giving him breast milk through a tube as well. Then, once he is doing well with that, hopefully we can progress to bottles. But, one step at a time.

Our little miracle is definitely living up to his name. He is a fighter (Caden) and God is certainly rescuing him (Joshua). Thank you for your continued prayers for him and us.