Tired, Itchy and Doing Amazing

Today has been another good day!
After looking at him today, I realized that I missed a bunch of stuff in my "Caleb's Extra Parts" list last night.  He also had an NG tube, pacer wires, and a line directly into his left ventricle.  And for the purists, his arterial line was in his hand, and his central line is in his neck.

Caleb was up a lot in the night.  We were always able to settle him and while he was in pain a couple of times, Morphine was able to control it.  He started eating ice chips around 11:30 pm and that made him feel better.  It probably helped not only his thirst, but also the sore throat he probably has from the breathing tube.  Sometime in the middle of the night, he started drinking apple juice.  He sucked down several juice boxes throughout the night.  He still had the NG tube in, so that sucked the apple juice back out, but it didn't make him nauseous and he felt better, so it was all good.

Early this morning, the doctor turned off the pacemaker to see what Caleb's heart would do on its own.  It did fine and they were able to keep the pacemaker off.  The lines will stay in until his heart proves that it won't do anything else funky, but as of 7:00 pm, it is still behaving.

At rounds this morning, everyone was discussing how well he was doing.  They decided that he was doing well enough to leave the PCTU (the cardiac ICU) and go to the floor.  Caleb rested for a while and then we got to business.  First, they removed the line that went into his left ventricle.  Next, they removed the arterial line from his hand and his catheter.  At one point this morning, Caleb was in pain so I asked him what was wrong.  He said that his foot hurt and said to fix it.  The nurse checked the IV in his foot and it was not working, so that came out too.  It is so much easier to figure out what is wrong when he can talk!

Caleb does not enjoy the nasal cannula (and likes to pick his nose) so he has spent all day messing with his nose.  Mid morning, the nurse noticed he seemed to be itchy.  That is a side effect of the Morphine.  He has had a couple of doses of Benadryl.  They have helped the itching and made him nice and drowsy.  They have reduced his Morphine and he is getting Toradol, Oxycodone and Tylenol for pain.

Caleb started Lasix last night to help him with his urine output.  It seems to be working, but only when he gets the Lasix.  Hopefully, his kidneys will decide to work better soon, but there is no real concern at this point.

Caleb has needed some magnesium because his levels were a bit low.  His chest x-ray looked good this morning.

This afternoon, Caleb's other peripheral IV stopped working, so that was removed.  Now he is down to one IV location with two ports, but luckily, he is only on a few medications, so it should work for a while.

Caleb has eaten a popsicle and been drinking apple juice.  He threw up once this morning, but that was my fault.  All night, he was able to drink as much as he wanted without getting sick because the NG tube was sucking the majority of the liquid out.  After the NG tube was pulled, I didn't limit what he drank and he threw up.  I learned my lesson and we had no problems after that.

His chest tube drainage is not too heavy, but I am guessing that it will get worse when he gets up and moving.  Getting up, moving and eating something are the plans for tomorrow.  They said that they weren't worried that he wasn't doing those things today because most Fontan patients don't go to the floor so soon.  So things are going really well!

Chilling with his Friend Frank



Eating a Popsicle