At Last!

We finally got to see our baby! After Dr. Reddy came to talk to us around 5:00, we anticipated it would be another hour or hour and a half before we could see Caden so we went and had some food. Then we headed up to the waiting area outside the CVICU to wait. Nursing shift change is from 7-7:30 pm and parents are not allowed on the unit during that time. We were hoping to get to see him at least for a few minutes before shift change but that didn't happen.

While we were waiting, the anesthesiologists came to talk to us around 6:15. They told us Caden did great as they took him from pre-op into the operating room. They said he was laughing and smiling the whole way – thank you Versed! And he went to sleep easily with the mask sedation. And they also said he did great during surgery and he was in CVICU getting settled and they just needed to do a chest x-ray. At that point, we still thought we would be able to see him before shift change.

As the minutes slipped by, we realized we wouldn't get to see him until after 7:30 so we waited. We started seeing the nurses getting off work all leaving the unit and still no one came to get us. So we waited some more. Finally one of the cardiac fellows we had met earlier in the day saw us sitting there as she was leaving. She said she would go check on Caden and see if we could go see him yet. She came back a couple minutes later and brought us in to see him. This was almost 8:00 pm – 3 hours after his surgery was finished. :( We were thankful she was willing to take a few more minutes of her time before going home to help us see Caden.

We were just glad to finally see him. I can't believe how good he looks. I was really expecting him to look bad (isn't that sad?). But it's amazing to me how good he actually looked. I guess I was comparing it to when he was a baby and had his first surgery. The first time we saw him after that, it was horrible and overwhelming because he looked so sick. I realize he still has a LOT of tubes and wires on him, but it seems better. He only had to have one chest tube drain this time and overall everything looks much better. The other thing that was surprising to me was how big he looked. I don't know if it's because the last time we did this he was a baby or what. But he just looked so grown up in the bed. I cried because of how good he looked when I saw him. It was such a huge relief!

 

 

Of course, after the initial impression wears off, the doctors and nurses told us his blood pressure was really high and they had tried a couple doses of pain meds to bring it down. It didn't affect it at all. So they decided to give him a blood pressure med to bring it down. Since it is very effective, they give it in small doses and check it every few minutes. They had to increase it a couple times before we started seeing improvement. And at the same time, we had people praying for the blood pressure to come down.

At this point, they were just waiting for him to wake up more in order to try to extubate him. However, around 10:15 pm, he woke up with a start and was still really groggy. He started trying to grab his endotrachial tube and yank it out. The nurse, Greg, and I all worked together to hold his arms and legs still so we could keep him from yanking out tubes that needed to stay put. We had to put the “no-no's” on his arms in order to keep him from bending them. The doctor wasn't ready to extubate him yet because they haven't dropped any of his ventilator settings yet to see how he does. So they ended up giving him a little more medication to help him sleep some more until they can lower the vent settings. Once they can can see he can handle breathing well on lower settings, they will wake him up more aggressively and then get the endotrachial tube out.

Wearing his No-No's

We aren't sure how much longer we will stay by his bed. We are both pretty tired, but they are getting ready to make some changes on his vent settings and monitor his blood gases to make sure he is doing well. The nurse told us it looks like he's actually being over-ventilated right now based on the numbers on the latest blood gas. So they have a lot of room to make changes.

Please pray that his vent settings can be brought down a lot and that his blood gases continue to look good and they can extubate soon. The longer the tube is down his throat, the more oral issues he may have. And after years of feeding therapy and working with him on improving his oral aversion issues, the last thing I want to do is go backwards. But we are praising God for how well he is doing. And we look forward to rapid improvement over the next few days.