Another Good Day

Caden continued to do well all Thursday afternoon and throughout the night. His biggest challenge right now is the fact that his vocal chords are not working properly and he can't make any noise when he cries. It's so pathetic to watch him soundlessly cry. The doctors think it's just temporary and it will come back soon, just a result of having the ventilator tube down for so long.

His potassium levels were too high, so they stopped the TPN they were giving him. The TPN had additional potassium added to it because when he was on the lasix drip, it caused the body to lose a lot of potassium. But now that he's not on a lasix drip, he has too much of it. So now he is just receiving breast milk (via tube through the nose) and lipids.

The physical therapist came by Friday afternoon and went over a few things with me in regards to positioning and handling of a baby with a sternonomy. It will certainly be an adjustment when we take him home. It's not like being able to take care of a healthy newborn, more precautions are necessary. She also talked to our nurse and arranged for her to help me hold him in the afternoon. It was about a 10 minute ordeal to get him ready and moved into my lap, but it was wonderful! I got to hold him for about 20 minutes before a technician came in to do an echo. I was so excited to hold him again since it has been almost two weeks since I held him last. Then, after shift change, the night nurse helped Greg hold him for awhile also. I think it's going to take Caden some time to get used to it again. For one thing, he hasn't been held in awhile so it probably feels strange to him. And, I'm sure he has more discomfort with being moved around. Every once in awhile, he will cough or sneeze and that makes him cry. I feel so bad for him. But overall, he seems to be doing okay. Not a lot of secretions coming out so that is good.

Caden was moved into a new room in the CVICU during the afternoon also. Now that he is off the ventilator, he doesn't need one-on-one care so in the afternoon he had a nurse with two patients. But shortly after he moved into that room, the patient he was paired with was transferred to a different floor and was replaced by a baby coming out of surgery. So because the other baby needed one-on-one care, Caden ended up with his own nurse again. If they pair two patients with one nurse, they must be immediately next to each other and by virtue of where the beds were located, he couldn't be paired with another baby. He seems to be happy to have the tube out, but has a hard time settling down to sleep much. We started giving him a pacifier on Thursday and he took right to it. He sucks on it like there is no tomorrow. We are happy he is willing to take a pacifier because it shows he is still able to suck. Hopefully this will help when we are finally able to start feeding by mouth. We'll see. We're told it is common for babies to have oral aversions due to having a tube for so long. So the fact that he takes a pacifier could be a good sign. We won't know until we can begin feedings by mouth. Could be a couple more days before this happens though.

We're not sure how much longer Caden will remain in the CVICU. The doctors haven't said anything about moving him to another unit. But the nurse last night said it is usually not long after being extubated. However, she said they usually keep patients who have coded a little longer just to monitor them and be more comfortable about their readiness to move. Of course, as we have learned, things change quickly and we could arrive tomorrow only to be told he is moving.