Thursday 1 December 2011

Still in Edmonton

It just goes to show that you can never know what is going to happen medically with your child.  They were certain that they would release Braeden today, I was told the only reason they wouldn't is if there were a complication with his heart surgically.  Surgically his heart is great, the echo cardiograms show that the site is strong and sound.  He has been having a few runs of SVTs again though, and that is a little scary knowing that his poor heart is fluttering when it must be sore.  Apparently there is no risk at all surgically when he goes into SVT but it is hard to believe when you see that 300 heart rate on the screen.  The fellowship Dr today that was at his bedside for an SVT was not too calm about it until she realised that I was calmer than her.  I'm not sure if I am more calm because I am now just getting desensitised to them or if I am realising that it's most likely not doing any lasting damage.  He stats did drop however with his 22 min episode today though so that was a bit unnerving.  We (yup, I get to form my opinions with the Dr's now too!) believe (hope hope hope) that it is just because his body is worn out from surgery.

They have cut back his morphine levels now by more than half and will continue to wean him off of it completely over the next day or so.  Babies are so astounding that they actually take them off the pain meds only two days post surgery because they heal quickly and they don't have the anticipation/anxiety of surgery like kids and adults do...scary crazy!  They will give him tylenol if he seems uncomfortable but for the most part that is it!!!  Yikes!  An adult would be out for at least a week and needing to be high as a kite for most of that time with such a large incision/surgery!

He did have his chest tube out this afternoon and his catheter removed as well.  Both good signs that recovery is happening.  His colour is looking good for the most part, it does change when he is distressed somewhat but will recover again quickly enough.

They are still concerned about his haemoglobin, it did come up after the last transfusion last night but not as high as they would have liked to have seen.  We'll see what it does over night.  His platelets have dropped as well so they are doing more frequent blood tests over the next 12 hrs.

The 'plan' (which is subject to change on a moments notice) is to call Calgary for transfer in the morning.  We will see how that goes, if it does go.  The problem they might run into is that we are now heading into the weekend and beds/staff are more scarce.  If we have to stay in Edmonton for the weekend it wouldn't be too bad, we do have an open end with our stay here at RMH and the kids are here now so that stress level has dropped. 

Michael drove up with T and Ry today and they are certainly relieved to be here with Mom.  They are loving the house but it is hard to decide what to play with when it is all brand new to them and there are three playrooms in which to chose toys play with. 

We had a fantastic supper tonight at Auntie Peggy's house (thank you again for having us) and we got to see half of the Edmonton Hewitts in one shot!  As we were leaving Torin decided he would live at Auntie Peggy's house when he grows up, apparently her phones were quite a hit with him!

As it stands we are just hanging out till someone tells us otherwise.

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