It's been a long couple of weeks, and yet somehow still a whirlwind. Owen is home from the hospital. He came home last Wednesday on oral antibiotics and with his same post-op heart meds. We follow up with cardiology next week. Overall, his operations were successful. The problem now is that we simply can't control his pain. We were told when we left the hospital that we should keep him on scheduled Lortab/Motrin for the first 24 hours, then go to Motrin only with Lortab as he needs it. Well, he has continued to need it up to and including today, and we only have about 1 dose left. The poor kid is just in pain, and he usually is not calmed by Mom and Dad or any of his favorite toys. We're definitely getting him weaned off the medication; it's just taking longer than we had anticipated.
As we settle back into our routine, Gavin has changed a bit too. Although I know he loved his time away with Mimi, he definitely is more clingy since he's been back. He cries more readily if we walk away from him, or if we're holding Owen instead of him. It's going to be even more of a shock to him once the baby comes. We'll just have to make sure to give him lots of hugs and kisses, even more than we already do.
And speaking of Baby Girl, the NSTs are going fine. She is always reactive and looking great. As of last Sunday, though, I have been having contractions. I'm sure they're just Braxton-Hicks, but they're still uncomfortable. Actually, I'm having one right now. Goodness, am I ever ready for this baby to be born!
Since being home, I've felt like I'm able to make more progress on getting ready for the baby and Christmas. I have my Christmas shopping about halfway done. And the truth is, we have almost all the supplies we need for Baby Girl, so we're ready in the most basic sense. But of course I'm nesting, and I want to make sure the room is just so, and the house is clean, etc. I might need not to expect so much of myself, but it's driving me crazy that everything isn't done and perfect around here.
And that's just sort of where we are, with less than 4 weeks to go before Baby Girl joins us!
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Monday, November 15, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
PICU Day #6
I find it somewhat darkly amusing that we've spent more time in PICU for this complication than we did after Owen's actual heart surgery.
Owen continues to look better since his procedure yesterday. He is draining a substantial amount of fluid, but not gobs and gobs. He's had about 90 mLs come out since the procedure. He is breathing much more easily and getting a little more feisty. But he still glares daggers at anyone who comes near his bed.
We could have moved to the floor today, but the floor is full. So we're hanging out in the PICU until someone goes home from the floor. It likely won't be until tomorrow that we get to move.
I have a slight sore throat today, and I'm hoping hoping hoping that it's just irritated and not progressing toward strep throat. Wouldn't that be fun, on top of everything else??
There's not much more going on right now; just playing a waiting game at the moment.
-Adrienne
Owen continues to look better since his procedure yesterday. He is draining a substantial amount of fluid, but not gobs and gobs. He's had about 90 mLs come out since the procedure. He is breathing much more easily and getting a little more feisty. But he still glares daggers at anyone who comes near his bed.
We could have moved to the floor today, but the floor is full. So we're hanging out in the PICU until someone goes home from the floor. It likely won't be until tomorrow that we get to move.
I have a slight sore throat today, and I'm hoping hoping hoping that it's just irritated and not progressing toward strep throat. Wouldn't that be fun, on top of everything else??
There's not much more going on right now; just playing a waiting game at the moment.
-Adrienne
Monday, November 1, 2010
Surgery
It's been a long day. This morning, Mark's dad brought Gavin to me at the hospital. He then sat with Owen while I took Gavin to his well child check-up (everything great there). I was really hoping to have some concrete answers before I left with Gavin, but no such luck.
When we returned, it was a different story. Owen's heart surgeon had decided to try placing a chest tube to drain the fluid (which is growing group A strep, an easy bug to treat). He tried this at 4:30, without much success. So now we are looking at a surgical procedure tomorrow to open up Owen's chest and try to break up some of those "compartments" where the infection is. Then it can drain fully, and the antibiotics should take care of the rest. We are looking at antibiotics for 3-4 weeks, but given the fact that it's an easy bacteria to treat, we should be able to switch to oral and go home with it, rather than wait out the course in the hospital.
But... My guess is we won't be going anywhere until at least the end of the week. =(
My mom took Gavin back to Seymour with her, so it will be nice for Mark and me to be able to be here at the same time while Owen has his procedure. I'm sure Gavin will have another grand time playing around the coffee house and eating ice cream. I miss him already, though.
We are still living at the hospital with a very grumpy and miserable little boy. Surely *sometime* he's got to start feeling better? I personally have not seen him smile in 2 weeks.
-Adrienne
When we returned, it was a different story. Owen's heart surgeon had decided to try placing a chest tube to drain the fluid (which is growing group A strep, an easy bug to treat). He tried this at 4:30, without much success. So now we are looking at a surgical procedure tomorrow to open up Owen's chest and try to break up some of those "compartments" where the infection is. Then it can drain fully, and the antibiotics should take care of the rest. We are looking at antibiotics for 3-4 weeks, but given the fact that it's an easy bacteria to treat, we should be able to switch to oral and go home with it, rather than wait out the course in the hospital.
But... My guess is we won't be going anywhere until at least the end of the week. =(
My mom took Gavin back to Seymour with her, so it will be nice for Mark and me to be able to be here at the same time while Owen has his procedure. I'm sure Gavin will have another grand time playing around the coffee house and eating ice cream. I miss him already, though.
We are still living at the hospital with a very grumpy and miserable little boy. Surely *sometime* he's got to start feeling better? I personally have not seen him smile in 2 weeks.
-Adrienne
In Limbo
Well, we still don't know much.
Yesterday, Owen had a CT scan to determine where the fluid in his chest was located. Turns out it's in loculations (sp?) along his right side. This means there are several pockets of fluid, as opposed to one large area. Yesterday evening, the ICU drs. sedated Owen and removed some of this fluid by inserting a needle into his side. This fluid was being sent for testing to determine whether it was simple post-op fluid accumulation, or whether it was an infection. We have not heard the result of this test.
Our cardiologist told us if the fluid is found to be an infection, Owen will have to have a procedure called a thoracotomy performed in order to remove it. This involves opening up his chest to get all of the infected fluid out. My goal this morning is to find out for sure whether Owen needs this.
In the meantime, I think we'll be here at least another day before cultures/sensitivities come back (and that's an optimistic estimate).
Oh yeah, and he could still have pneumonia on top of all this. At this point, I'm starting to worry that he won't make it home before I have to go back to work on Sunday. =(
-Adrienne
Yesterday, Owen had a CT scan to determine where the fluid in his chest was located. Turns out it's in loculations (sp?) along his right side. This means there are several pockets of fluid, as opposed to one large area. Yesterday evening, the ICU drs. sedated Owen and removed some of this fluid by inserting a needle into his side. This fluid was being sent for testing to determine whether it was simple post-op fluid accumulation, or whether it was an infection. We have not heard the result of this test.
Our cardiologist told us if the fluid is found to be an infection, Owen will have to have a procedure called a thoracotomy performed in order to remove it. This involves opening up his chest to get all of the infected fluid out. My goal this morning is to find out for sure whether Owen needs this.
In the meantime, I think we'll be here at least another day before cultures/sensitivities come back (and that's an optimistic estimate).
Oh yeah, and he could still have pneumonia on top of all this. At this point, I'm starting to worry that he won't make it home before I have to go back to work on Sunday. =(
-Adrienne
Sunday, October 31, 2010
48 Hours
...is how long we were home. Yesterday, when I got Owen up from his nap, he just looked terrible to me. He was sweating with the labor of breathing, and his abdomen and face seemed much puffier than before, as though he were retaining fluid. So I paged the cardiologist, who met us at the ER just to check things out. I was positive I was just being a paranoid mom and everything was fine. Then the doctors did the following math:
White count of 26 + O2 sats of 67 + super fluid overload + hazy chest x-ray = Readmission
Poor bubby. So he spent the night in the ICU, and he is receiving at least cefotaxime. I also heard the dr. mention vanc, but never actually saw that get started last night. Mark and I both stayed here last night, and Mark's dad very graciously stayed with Gavin, who seems to have a little stomach bug of his own.
So, hopefully today we'll get more of what the plan will be for Owen this time. If his cultures come back growing anything, he'll definitely need a full course of antibiotics. Depending on what they grow, we could maybe go home in a few days with him on orals. We'll see.
-Adrienne
White count of 26 + O2 sats of 67 + super fluid overload + hazy chest x-ray = Readmission
Poor bubby. So he spent the night in the ICU, and he is receiving at least cefotaxime. I also heard the dr. mention vanc, but never actually saw that get started last night. Mark and I both stayed here last night, and Mark's dad very graciously stayed with Gavin, who seems to have a little stomach bug of his own.
So, hopefully today we'll get more of what the plan will be for Owen this time. If his cultures come back growing anything, he'll definitely need a full course of antibiotics. Depending on what they grow, we could maybe go home in a few days with him on orals. We'll see.
-Adrienne
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