Thursday, January 29

Last night after evening rounds, the attending physician sat down with me and Greg to go over the events of the afternoon. This was mostly for Greg because he wasn't around for the explanations I received earlier in the day. She took the time to answer any questions we might have and helped Greg understand all that had taken place. I asked her if Caden coding set us back to surgery day, or if he was in worse shape than before surgery. She said he wasn't in worse shape than before surgery, but we were back to square one following surgery. This is very discouraging to us, but we are grateful Caden is still alive. In response to me asking how long she thought Caden would remain in CVICU, she said he would probably be there at least two more weeks. But it is really hard to predict. And, once he leaves CVICU, he will go to another unit to work on feeding, etc. before being discharged to go home. So, we will definitely be here for awhile longer.

Our pastors and their wives had originally planned to come over and take us to dinner Wednesday night. But after the events of the day, we didn't really want to leave the hospital. They were kind enough to pick up some food for us and bring it to the hospital for us to eat. We enjoyed the time and fellowship with them. It is so nice to have such supportive pastors. The chaplain at the hospital is amazed that our pastors would come over here to visit us, and especially that this would be their third trip over. We told her we had an amazing church family and an active prayer chain who was praying the minute they found out Caden was in an emergency status. We are truly blessed by that. In addition to our pastors coming over, Greg's parents decided to drive down from Medford to support us in any way they can.

As I mentioned before, Emily had arranged for Greg and I to have a bed to sleep on at the hospital so we could remain closer to Caden. We were happy to have that option and did sleep there. However, because of all the visitors and increased adrenaline from the afternoon, we didn't end up getting to bed until after midnight sometime. I got up once during the night to pump and went into Caden's room after that to see how he was doing. His nurse said he was still stable and the doctor had been lowering his ventilator rates throughout the night because he was doing well. Greg also went to see him during the night and spent a little time with him.

This morning during rounds, the doctors seemed to be happy overall with Caden's status. He had a pretty good night. It was quiet which was a good thing. And, they adjusted his ventilator settings a few times while they were in the room. They also said they were going to put him back on TPN for nutrition since they want to keep him off of foods by mouth until later. They also said they were going to leave his chest open for a little while longer in order to keep any additional pressure off the lungs and heart. The biggest challenge they are dealing with is trying to increase pressure in the right lung while not putting too much extra pressure in the healthy left lung. It's quite a balancing act. They had also suctioned him several times and had gotten a fair amount of mucus plugs out which they thought was a good sign. In the meantime though, they are keeping him heavily sedated and paralyzed so that he doesn't move around too much and cause undue pressure on his organs. It's pretty hard to see him so drugged and paralyzed so that he can't even move. But we understand why they are doing it.

That is the update for now. I will try to post additional entries as things change. But, we are hoping for uneventful days and weeks ahead. We just want slow, steady progress. We are completely exhausted, but we're managing to cope as best we can.