Progress!!

After all the tube removal...there's a baby
under there!!

No wonder he was so uncomfortable. You
can't even see two of the drain tubes in this
picture.

I was given the news this morning that between 10-2, we'll be leaving the ICU!!

I can't even tell you how excited I am to have an in-room bathroom again. We technically have one here, but I kid you not, it has glass walls.

Uh, nope. Nope nope nope.

Anyway, a basic recap of yesterday: He still wasn't keeping his sats up on his own, so they put him back on NO (nitrous oxide) for a little while. In their attempt to get him off the breathing tube, they weaned him off of a lot of things at once, so they weren't quite sure what was the culprit. Today he's off of it again, because they decided that his sats are probably just caused by his residual virus. They will, of course, be doing another echo before we leave. They also pulled one of his three drainage tubes, which didn't seem to make much change to his comfort level.

Sitting upright is his position of choice, now.
Better for the headaches and circulation.

He had another rough night...who wouldn't, with all that stuff attached to you? Had a crying jag at midnight, followed by an X-ray at 4 that they had to wake him for, and then at 6 when they had to plant a new IV. This poor kid has not been having much luck with his sleep patterns. Every time he manages to fall into a decent sleep, he gets woken up for some sort of procedure or vitals. His whole schedule has been shot to smash, but today I've begun to work back towards it. No kid is going to be happy taking a twenty minute nap every hour or so!

Today's procedures included the removal of two central lines (much like the PICC he had last time, but these were threaded through his chest), two sets of pacer wires, and finally his last two drainage tubes. The central one has been causing him no end of unrest. To keep it from being dislodged, the tube is sewn into the skin. That meant that every move he made and every diaper he had changed and every time he was picked up without the utmost care, it pulled. I can't blame him for being such an angry little kid the past two days. As soon as he realized that one was gone, he started cooing and kicking his feet all over the place, and I got the first smile out of him that I've seen in days!

"Look, Ma! I can move again!"

With all that paraphernalia gone, and after they performed another echo and X-ray, I just sat and held him while he took his first two hour nap since Monday. We both got to relax better than we had in a long time.

He's made enough progress that they're looking into moving us out of the ICU this evening! There's a little question as to his sats amongst the nurses(he threw a fit during one of his early morning wake-ups and hit the 50's again), so there's a slight chance we'll be here another day or so, but soon! (Actually, about ten minutes after writing this paragraph, we got moved! To a huge new room...love it!)

In other news, I broke down and asked Tanner to come back out for a few days. I was hoping to make it through the last little while here without having to use up the rest of his vacation days, but lately, the idea of having my other half on hand has sounded really nice. I'm not sure what it is, but his presence alone seems to fix things.

Sleepy, sleepy kiddo.

It's taken me literally all day to get this post written (I started it at 8:00 this morning), so the final, most current update, is that we're now on the floor with two very sweet nurses that we had last week...they're excited to see us back! Brandt is doing pretty well. He is still cranky. The way the Glenn redirects the blood flow, it flows pretty passively and therefore tends to back up into the head quite a bit. It causes headaches and swelling, especially when he lays flat, so we're constantly working to keep on top of it. He's dosed with morphine and Tylenol alternately every four hours. Morphine, of course, causes constipation, so he's also on stool softeners and daily suppositories. Then there's Lasix, which is pretty basic, post surgery. They also have him on a multivitamin, which must taste terrible, going by the smell. Because of all of these, Brandt has gotten pretty disdainful of anything that comes in an oral syringe.

The nurses all still think he's cute, so even though I'm in a hotel tonight (and the next three!), he's going to be very well taken care of. Those ladies are pure gold, I tell you. We have yet to have a bad one. Obnoxious, maybe, but still kind, and completely understanding of my time away. They make hospital stays much easier.