Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Good - This morning


Better - This afternoon


Great - This evening












On a scale of 1 to 10, today was an 11!

To let you know this really is about Caleb and not some stand-in superstar baby, I will explain his effort last night to make me totally gray. Last night, I went back to the hospital after finishing the blog post. I called to see if I could go back to see him and the receptionist hesitated and was gone for a while checking with Caleb's nurse. She said I could go back and when I got there, Caleb was on the transporting monitor and packed up to head out somewhere. His pupils were different sizes and were sluggish. They also noticed the left side of his body was not moving much. They were worried that he might have bleeding in his brain, so they quickly got him in to do a CT scan of his head. After about an hour, they came back with some ambiguous results that did not indicate there was a problem. By the time he came back, he was moving his left side and by this afternoon, his pupils were working like they were supposed to. They think he just had a reaction to the anaesthesia.

Great Thing #1 - Caleb is off the ventilator
They sprinted (the test to see if he was ready to come off the ventilator) Caleb twice in the night last night. He passed the first sprint and failed the second. When Caleb is on morphine, sometimes he gets a little too calm and forgets to breathe. This morning, they cut his morphine in half and he was awake a lot more. He passed two sprints this afternoon and was taken off the ventilator at 5:00 pm. When I left at 8:30 tonight, he was still doing great.

Great Thing #2 - Caleb's surgery looks like a success
The surgeon told me this morning that they are very happy with the results of the surgery. His oxygen saturations are down where they want them and his other numbers look good. His chest tube is barely draining and may be able to come out tomorrow.

Great Thing #3 - Caleb had a good looking echocardiogram today
Caleb had an echocardiogram today and his heart looks good. His function is good and his mitral valve (the valve on the left side, his good side) is working properly with no leaks. He does have a blood clot where his PICC line was, but they are just going to watch it and give him his aspirin.

Great Thing #4 - Caleb is making great overall progress
Today, they removed Caleb's foley catheter so he is peeing in a diaper now. He started peeing on his own, so he is not entirely dependent on diuretics. He did need to start diuretics this morning because his lungs were wet (not unexpected) but the diuretics are working and his lungs sound better.

Caleb's PICC line was not working properly, so they removed it. They are going to wait to replace it because the line they placed for the surgery yesterday should last for a while and they don't necessarily feel that we will need something long term anymore.

Based on today's progress, we are cautiously optimistic. We know that there will be some setbacks, but hopefully we have started in the right direction. Being here, you walk a fine line between being optimistic and being superstitious. There is a lot of knocking on wood and "So far, so good". Most everyone here has a "glass half full" mentality, but we are always worried someone will tip over our glass when we least expect it. I will officially call today a great day and not be worried that I will put a jinx on tomorrow!