More about Today

After talking with the CVICU attending physician, I realize Caden was in full cardiac arrest. I have now been in to see him, however, I was unable to look at the open chest. So I had them cover it with a piece of gauze (yes I am a wimp!). The poor thing is covered in iodine and looks a complete mess. But as long as he is stable, that is okay. In the doctors' terms, he is critical but stable.

It's been a very hard afternoon. Emotionally draining and physically exhausting. Greg is here now and I am glad for that. One of the hardest things for me is that I feel like we're back to square one or further back than when we started. Yesterday, Caden was off almost all his medications and had many of his tubes out. Now, he has a catheter again, and is back on many medications as well as nitric oxide. It just feels like we took HUGE leaps backwards today.

In talking to the attending, she said they were as surprised as me that this happened. They said there were no indicators that there would be any kind of arrest like this. She said she feels very good about how quickly CPR was started and says the chance of permanent brain damage from lack of oxygen is low. But, the fact remains, that there is a chance because his oxygen levels were so low. But there is no way for us to know until they allow him to come off the sedation. They said they will plan on leaving his chest open until tomorrow for sure and will probably be able to close it at that time. But she said there are cases where they leave the chest open as long as a week. Hopefully we're not in that situation. Any way we look at it, it appears our stay here will not be ending any time too soon.