Nicholas Surgery ~ Day 2

Nicholas did wonderfully over night with everything other then he is a fighter and was giving them a bugger of a time trying to get him under control. He would kick his feet and arch his back wanting to be laid on his belly. They gave him some pain meds but slowly weened him off of them through out the night so he would be a bit more awake when they took him off the breathing tube. When on pain meds, babies slow down on their breathing and they want to make sure he will be fine without the tube.

When we arrived around 9:30, the doctor for PICU and nurses filled us in on everything. They talked about taking him off the breathing tube around 10:00. We noticed that they started to take the tape off of his face so we quickly left the room. We both didn't want to be there to watch them take the tube out.

My father in-law had called earlier to see how Nick was doing. Matt told him he would call him back once we saw him and got some news. Matt did call him back and has to call him with an update around 5 or 6 tonight. I called my mom to fill her in on how everything was going. I was even able to talk to Maddy and then at 11:00 we went to get some lunch.

We went back to see Nicholas who looked MUCH better then he did when we left. He had the breathing tube out of his mouth and even the one out of his nose. All he had was just a small oxygen tube in to give him a bit of oxygen. They also took him off the pace maker but left the wires in just in case they needed them later. Oh and they didn't even give him any blood... YAY!!! Not sure if I said anything about that in my last post.

He now has a beautiful pink color to him, or at least it looks better then it did before. He opens his eyes every now and then but I don't think he has seen me yet. I know he can hear me since every time I talk he starts to cry wanting me to hold him. That will probably come later this evening when he is able to drink some petialight (sp?) I think he has to be able to drink some formula before he can got to TCU or at least that's what Matt said he remembered happen last time. I can't remember but I do remember it was something that held us off till midnight.

Around 1:00 my friend Lola had called saying she was in the parking lot parked right next to our van. Matt talked her through how to get to us. We were sitting in a lobby on the first floor. The one we sat in yesterday was packed.

I took Lola in to see Nick and she took it pretty good. She loved on him the only way we could. Nicholas started to get fussy so we went out into the surgery waiting room for family. We visited some and then went to see Nicholas again. They had taken him off some more wires since he was kicking and pretty much kicking them off. There was even a time when Lola and I went back and they were changing his bandages which he was NOT happy about. Well they said he was fine with the bandages, it was something else he wasn't happy with so they decided to give him some more pain meds. That helped him quit down long enough to take a good nap.

We decided to go down for Dinner. I was hoping to be able to feed Nick after dinner since he was sleeping before but when I got back the nurse had already fed him a half hour before... Dang. Matt walked Lola to her Van and put some bags up we had full of snacks and stuff.

I told him I wanted to wait around till 8:30, 9:00 so I could feed him. We went and waited the time in the family waiting room until it was time since he was sleeping again. We went back around 8:30 and found that he was still sleeping. They didn't want to wake him up for a feeding so that meant I wasn't able to feed him... DANG!!!

The nurse explained to us that she tried to take Nick off of the oxygen fully but his oxygen numbers dropped down to low 90s. She wanted to keep it around 95% so she gave it back to him and it went back up. She said, its not much. Just a little more then what we would breath in but are hoping to ween him off of it soon.

She also showed me his fluid levels chart. He has two fluid tube bubbles in. Yesterday he started off on something like 29 ml (right) and 21.5 ml (center)... that was after his surgery. Then later last night it was something like 25 ml ~ 21.5 ml. This morning it was 23 ml ~ 22 ml and then tonight 21.5 ml ~ 21.5 ml. Slowly it is going down. They want it to be totally down to like 2 or 3 ml a shift before we go home. They are very happy with these numbers though.

I'm not sure if he is going to go into TCU tomorrow night or not. Matt thinks that it will be more like Saturday Night before he goes in. I guess only time will tell. Our hope is to go home Monday.

Everything else looks pretty good. They are planning on taking some more wires and such off before he ends up taking them off himself lol. They keep telling me he is such a strong little boy and full of energy lol. Yup, that he gets from his daddy lol.