Another Rough Day!

Seriously post-op recovery STINKS! Today wasn't much better...just different!
After Jaime's code last night, he did stable out. When I called this morning to check on him (I just HAD to get my laundry done early), his nurse said he was OK. She said his paralytic was "officially" off at 6:00 A.M. making him a little restless. Also, Dr. Tiao took off Jaime's bandage exposing his staples. Over all his incision looks rather good. His x-ray showed that his left lung was still collapsed and his right one was just "eh." By 11:30 A.M. (ish) Jaime was coding again! They think he clamped down on his tube closing off his vent, not to mention they sucked thick, chunky secretions from it. His nurse was doing a sterile procedure with his picc line when all of this started. Obviously, Jaime wasn't tolerating this. The code was called, his heart rate went down into the 80's and his O2 sats went down to 9%. SCARY!!!!! They got him back up...kind of took a "minute" though, YIKES! As I said yesterday, blue is not a pretty color. His thick secretions led to cultures and blood draws, as well as antibiotics (I asked for those, doesn't hurt to be pro-active when it comes to these little ones).
After all of the commotion, Jaime was starting to wake up even more. I have sat by his side literally ALL DAY holding his hands and head, so that he wouldn't move them to pull the ET tube out. I missed lunch and dinner (until after 7:00 P.M.), but one of my CDH buddies went on a stealth mission to make sure I had a little something. (Thanks!!!! ;)
Anyway, other changes...Jaime's repogle (tube in his nose to suck out his stomach goo) was discontinued and there was talk of starting continuous NG feeds on Jaime at 2mls an hour. His surgeon really wants to see how things will move since his bowels were completely out of his body and put back in. While this sounded GREAT...once the repogle was removed, Jaime's nurse and I noticed his tummy getting bigger and bigger. Needless to say, a new order has been written to reinsert the repogle and hold the feeds. Other new stuff....Jaime's sedation and pain meds were increased! I suppose they did this because of Jaime's thrashing and desire to pull his breathing tube...LOL...yes, I'm being sarcastic, that's EXACTLY why they did this!
Also, one thing I failed to mention yesterday was that Jaime is receiving CPT's again. This time instead of "clapping" Jaime's chest, they are using vibration on it! Without going into too much detail...whatever type of instrument you can imagine would be used for such a thing, really IS used...CRAZY!!!!
Let's see what else....it's hard to think of everything it's been sooooo incredibly active in here literally all day. Oh, Pr. Eric came to do an anointing on Jaime. He used (for the first time, I might add) his special olive oil in a bottle made from an olive tree from Jerusalem. How neat is that? We our honored, thank you Pr. Eric!!!! It's always great to see you!
While he was here, another chest x-ray was taken. By 3:00 P.M. we found out that Jaime's left lung had FINALLY expanded...YEA!!!!! This was GREAT news! He also had a GREAT blood gas this evening, so his vent settings were finally lowered! (See it's not ALL bad!) There was talk of doing a bronchial scope this week if his lung didn't expand, I'm thinking that may not be necessary now.
I think that's all to report. Seems like there was more, I'm too exhausted to even think at this point! I haven't had but a few hours of sleep all week. I promise I WILL leave the NICU "early" tonight! I do have some pics to post...I even got a few of him waking up....my poor drowsy little baby!

Jaime's new and improved "war" wound!

Kim (RT) doing Jaime's CPT.

Jaime waking up...mornin'

Is that a smile?!?

Why am I so sleepy mommy? (pst....drugs)

Still there Mommy? (yeppers!)

FINALLY, ASLEEP!!!!!!

Here's hoping for a good night for everyone, especially Jaime! :-)