saturday 7/20/2013

Sweet Ava is still completely out of it, thankfully. I don't want her to be conscious of any of this. I wish they could knock me out for a week with morphine too, so I could just wake up when she's better.  Today she was switched from the oscillator back to a conventional ventilator which she likes better because she can throw in her own breaths whenever she needs. She is completely off the vasopressin and vecuronium so she is no longer paralyzed. They pulled her cook line which was the IV central line placed by surgery in her right thigh. They also pulled her arterial line placed by a cardiac anesthesiologist in her right armpit. This one bummed me out a little because they could draw blood from this line, and now they will have to start poking her foot again for lab draws. Also this line constantly and accurately monitored her blood pressure, which will now have to be done manually.I haven't seen her open her eyes but she does move her limbs a bit, which is good because it helps the swelling to go down when she can circulate more blood out to her limbs. She's peed like a champ for days, so her kidneys are doing their job..so they also pulled the foley (pee) catheter out today too. The more lines she has in her the higher the risk for infection so they are trying to get rid of things as soon as possible. Her blood pressure has been high, like 120/66, but when she is given her morphine it comes down again. She is still on scheduled morphine and versed to keep her pretty sedated. If her blood pressure is high when the morphine is weaned (later) they may have to consider an IV BP med. They gave her propranolol (for BP) through her NG tube with 10mL of breastmilk, but she didn't absorb any of it so they made her NPO again (nothing by mouth). So, she is still on the artificial IV nutrition (TPN). She either still has a septic illeus or the morphine is preventing her stomach/bowels from moving the food along.  The cardiologist told me they'd do the full heart repair in 4-6 weeks, but another cardiologist told Dr. Yost, the attending, that we'd be looking at 6-8 weeks before doing the repair. I still have no idea about the g-tube surgery. I think cardiology would like us to wait until after hte heart surgery for the g-tube, but I'm just not sure. I hope to be out of Salt Lake City by the end of October...before the snow hits the roads.