heart surgery
-
Home tomorrow?
The tentative plan is to send Namine home tomorrow. I say “tentative” because the plan was to send her home today, but she has a fever. They can’t explain the fever – not from the amount of medication she’s on, and certainly not this far out after surgery. So the plan, as it stands now,…
-
Namine’s bon mot du jour
“Daddy, I want to go home.” “I know, honey. But we have to stay here until you’re better. Then we can go home.” “You mean I have to stay here a few more days?” “Yeah.” “Aw, dammit.”
-
All tucked in
Namine is out of the cardiac ICU and on a general care floor. Still in the hospital, sure, but here it’s a little less stressful. The lack of constant beeping plays a part, I think, but mostly it’s just knowing how well Namine is doing. And, of course, how close we are to going home.
-
Meet the new room, same as the old room
After having the central line removed – yeah, that happened – Namine is being moved out of the cardiac ICU up to a standard room. It shouldn’t be much longer until we go home, but for now she’s still on observation. When the doctors met in rounds outside Namine’s room this morning, they decided not…
-
Doggies + tacos = happiness
Namine was paid a visit at lunchtime once more by a therapist with a dog. I think she must be getting over her fear of dogs, because she was thrilled to be able to pet this one too.
-
A visit from Houdini the therapy dog
Namine enjoyed getting a visit from Houdini the therapy dog.
-
Room air and more
This morning they took Namine off the liter of oxygen that she’s been on since coming to the ICU. Her O2 has stayed in the low nineties pretty consistently, so that’s one less thing she needs.
-
Never mind
Namine’s pleural drainage tubes had too much output last night, so they’re not removing them this morning. On the other hand, at least she can drink again.
-
One more removal
Namine’s heparin is scheduled to be stopped at 4:00 tomorrow morning. Then at 8:00, the remaining two chest tubes and pacing wires will be pulled! This is good news, indeed.
-
Real food again
We’re now on day two of getting Namine back to a regular diet. She’s had a variety of things – popsicles, Jell-O, chicken broth, and applesauce. She still hasn’t eaten a whole lot, but the fact that she’s willing to try a larger variety of food is enough for now.
-
Hope for tomorrow
Namine had a very good day today. Not only did she have one of her drainage tubes taken out, but she also did not throw up at all. True, all she had was Gatorade, water, and part of a popsicle, but she kept it all down, which is more than we could say for yesterday.
-
One drainage tube down
Namine had the first post-surgery drainage tube removed.