Wednesday, March 22, 2006

3/22/06

A couple of pictures from the last couple of days, since Blogger is being kind enough to allow me to upload them without freezing my whole system.

This picture is from Monday, shortly after the surgery. He's completely zonked.

This is from yesterday (Tuesday) You can see how much more swollen he looks.

And this picture of the colostomy is cuz I'm a little gross ;)

I called the hospital just now because the doctors were at the bedside earlier. Seems Nova got pretty agitated around 5am and they basically had to knock him out to calm him down because when he gets crying really hard his oxygen levels drop.

They also did an echocardiogram that shows that the left branch of his pulmonary artery is definitely too narrow, so they'll have to do that heart cath for sure. That will be next Monday, as far as I know so far.

His white blood count is up, which means there IS an infection somewhere, but damn if I can figure out how when he's on so many antibiotics. They're switching his antibiotics and adding some new ones and stuff to get a head start on that, even though they don't know exactly where the infection is right now.

They plan to remove the last chest tube today, and tomorrow they plan to run a new central line. He's still swollen, but the lasix drip is still running and he's peeing like a champ, and the echocardiogram showed that there are no problems with the vessels in his neck (sometimes those get blocked from the swelling and inactivity, which causes the head to become swollen, but the echo showed that that's not a problem) so that will start to go down soon.

And I think that's all for now.

8 comments:

  1. Well, that's a post full of mostly good news. I guess maybe I'm just considering it that because we actually have some decisions and answers. Glad they did the echo. Why didn't they do it sooner? It's such a non-invasive sort of thing and all. Seems that would have been scheduled prior to any talk of heart caths since it seems to have revealed the problem quite easily.

    Of course, I'm no doctor. I'm sure they have their reasons.

    Crossing my fingers that the infection has been stopped with the new abx coctail.

    I think that anyone that's been mostly immobile for a month would have some sort of fluid retention, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. The lasix will keep that in check until he no longer needs it. Everything seems to be working correctly, and that is such great news.

    Sending him, and you, my love.

    PS: I went to the store yesterday and baby socks was the first thing on my list, which means that I, of course, forgot them! Sometimes I wonder why I bother with lists at all! Promise, I'll send some soon.

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  2. Ah, good. Mostly a positive post. At least now you know they have to do the heart cath, when, AND why and, well, the rest will follow to healing. *hug*

    Bloggers been a pain in the ass lately, but, at least we it didn't give you problems today. Btw, great pic of the "bag" lol. Perhaps you can get a bit of rest now that you have some answers.

    *hug* Love you guys. I'm putting together a package. Hopefully I remember to send it out!!!

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  3. I love you guys!

    Ang~
    Did you at least remember to take the list with you? I make lists, then leave them at home lol.

    Mary~
    How's THAT for a picture to show his first girlfriend? ;) Aren't I just horrible?

    MWAAHAHAHA!!!

    *smooches* to you both!
    ~E

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  4. E, I forget my list more often than not. And I never stick to it anyway, so I don't know why I bother. Just some effort towards organization, I suppose. :)

    I'm getting ready to start knitting baby booties for my neice who is to be born in August. If they turn out well, and aren't too difficult, maybe a few hand-made items would be accepted by the charity? I've got a whole book of different patterns to try out. Maybe I could get the online knitting community started on a project for them?

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  5. Ang! I think that would be awesome! Hand-knitted booties for the babies would be so sweet!

    And that list-making thing? Yeah, just me pretending I have some idea of wtf I'm doing ;)

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  6. Hmm...I'm thinking we should form a new group. Lost-listers anonymous...it could be catchy or catching lol...Just a thought :-P

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  7. Um, OK Mary - but who would we trust to hold on to the member list?

    hahahaha!

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  8. LMAO Okay...good point!

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