Tubes & Probes & Wiggling

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2010 7:57 AM, EDT

Good morning, everyone!

Sorry I didn't post further updates yesterday, as promised. After the surgery everything was pretty scattered for the rest of the day.

We got to see Little Guy at about 1:30. He's a little scary looking, with all the tubes and wires. We figured we were ready for that, having been in the NICU for so long. But this is a different level - much more complicated. He has two IVs (one in neck, on in arm), a catheter, a chest tube that is draining fluid from his chest cavity, and some pace-making wires going to his heart. That, plus the incision, plus the respirator. He's being monitored in more ways, too - blood oxygenation is being monitored in different places (soon after the blood leaves the heart, then again as it gets to his head/brain) and he has a temperature probe on his foot, which also lets them know how circulation is going (warm foot = good).

The interplay of everything is pretty complicated, too, and I don't know that I understand everything. Some things he is currently experiencing are expected after the major trauma of surgery - irregular heartbeat, differing blood pressures, etc. The nurse said it'll take a bit of time to know what is happening as a result of the surgery, and what is the real deal (more permanent), and that makes sense.

It was difficult watching him last night - he was wiggling around a lot. The doctor swore it's not pain from the surgery he's feeling, but just ("just") agitation from being aware of the respirator. He has had more medication than usual to manage him (both morphine and some sedative/hypnotics).

And this morning when Matt called to check in, he has not made as much progress in weaning off the respirator as we had hoped. He was at 25 breaths per minute when he came down to ICU, then was reduced to 22, then to 20. They have to get him down to 10 breaths by the respirator per minute before they take the next step, which is that the respirator would only breathe for him when he doesn't do it on his own, and then he could come off it. But overnight he's back up to 22, so I guess that's our challenge for the day.

I'll write more later about yesterday, I guess, though I don't necessarily want to think about it too much. The pre-op part where we got to be with David as he was falling asleep was awful awful awful, pretty much as bad as I imagined. And after all the build-up about the stupid red line, we didn't even get to do it - the anesthesiologist (whew, sp?) just carried him away in her arms. I mean, we got the final hug/kiss, but I guess like many things in life, it wasn't as we had expected.