It has been a long day at the step down unit. Jack had a lot of poking and prodding--blood drawn for levels, more medicine through IV, and medicine he is suppose to take by mouth. Tell me this...why do they make medicine so nasty and then tell a toddler to take by mouth. It is called flavor...and no putting it in apple juice does not make it easier.
Jack's oxygen kept going down throughout the night and into this morning (down to 80% with 2L of O2). The docs kept saying it was the pain and fluid...but after some chest x-rays, it was determined that his right chest tube had a blood clot in it. The nurses did some messaging of the tube and got the clot to break up and now he is draining like crazy. His oxygen has gone up to 90% on .5L of O2. His tummy was so descended before, is now coming back to normal. His weight is even better. He was up something like 3 pounds since surgery (which makes no sense because he is hardly consuming any fluids)...they are going to recheck his weight when he wakes up.
Poor guy tells everyone "no" or "not this" when they walk in the door now. If I ever thought he had a dislike for doctors and nurses before, well, he definitely does now. He is not up for talking much. But I am hoping that once all this fluid leaves his chest and belly, he will feel better. The doctors are saying that he should get the chest tubes, external pacing wires, and his dressing out tomorrow and we have a scheduled echo at noon on Monday. Dr. Breitbart said that we will be here at least a few days once the chest tubes come out. We are also waiting to hear if they want us in Boston for our first follow-up appointment or if we can do it in Birmingham.
Every time Brian or I get a little antsy about being here, we just look at our roommate or the other kiddos on the floor and see how blessed we are. Our little roommate is waiting on a heart transplant. He has TGA but a couple of hours after is corrective surgery when he was just days old he suffered a massive stroke in his carotid artery that should have killed him but instead he lived. However, the stroke has caused so much damage to his heart that it is no longer working for him and he is here waiting for a new one. It is hard to feel sorry for yourself, when I know we get to go home next week...and this guy might be here for who knows how long.
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