3 Days Post-Op

Sorry we haven't posted anything for a couple days but not too much has changed. Caden is doing well post surgery but isn't speeding along in his recovery. The doctors are not concerned, but are just recognizing that he is slower to respond to changes than other babies are. Yesterday, they said they would try to wean him off the ventilator today and get him moved back to NICU tomorrow. This morning during rounds, the doctors said he still needs to lose a lot of the fluid build-up that was a result of being on the heart-lung bypass machine. His face, arms and legs actually look pretty good. But his abdomen is still quite swollen and they want him to lose some of that fluid before they take him off the ventilator. But they are slowly moving the ventilator rate down and he is doing okay with it. The doctors also said that they will probably wait to feed him until tomorrow. Although his bilirubin was back up and they thought feeding him would help him lower that.

Most of his medications have been stopped. He is still on Lasix to help him get rid of the extra fluid. And, he is receiving some calcium to replace what is being lost due to the Lasix. They also give him morphine periodically to help him be comfortable. But he is off the sedatives, the blood pressure medications, the heparin, and who knows what else. The nurse also removed the IV from his left arm so his left arm is bare. He still has plenty of other tubes and wires, but he's handling it well.

Because he is not so heavily sedated, he has been opening his eyes more. This morning after rounds Caden had his eyes open for quite a long time, just looking around. It was very sweet. I took a few pictures and a video and talked to him for awhile. He was wiggling his feet and left arm around a bit also which was good for me to see. It helps us see his progress.

I left Caden's room for about an hour and when I came back to check in and see how he was doing, his nurse said the attending doctor had come in (she wasn't there during rounds) and said she wanted to push him a little bit. So, she wanted to try to extubate him later this afternoon. So in the meantime, they were lowering the ventilator rate some more and were moving that direction. In addition, they also removed his catheter so that is one more tube gone. It is so nice to see things slowly coming off of him. The nurse is supposed to call me this afternoon if they are going to extubate. I'd like to be there to see how he does afterwards.

We are very anxious to go home, but we realize that we need to be patient. We want Caden to take his time with recovery so that he can be in the best health possible when we leave. Greg is actually going to go home today for a few days. He has a project he needs to get done at work before the end of January. Since Caden has had surgery and is doing well, he thought he would go home and get the project done. But, we are still hopeful we will get to move home by sometime next week. It all depends on Caden. The doctors keep telling us that he is the one who is in charge.