Step Down

The three of us have settled into our room in Step Down. Graysen is doing great. They gave him a dose of morphine this morning because they had to remove some monitoring wires which were placed inside his heart. This cause him to sleep most of the day. This evening, he woke up and drank a bottle and is now starting to play.

All that Graysen has left is the chest tube (drains blood from the area around his heart), pacing wires (in case they need to override SVT rhythm), and an IV. Graysen is still bleeding too much for them to remove the chest tube. His level of bleeding in this surgery was higher than normal, but is not a concern. It is understandable since he had a bleed in the OR, and it is his second surgery. (Bleeding levels are higher with each additional surgery.) The surgeon looked at him again today to assess the bleeding. He thinks that the chest tube may be able to be removed either Saturday or Sunday.

He is still on a lot of medication, which will slowly be weaned over the next few days. He is breathing room air, and his O2 sat is 95%. He is still retaining a lot of fluid in his body, and they anticipate that his O2 sat will be 100% on room air by the time that he leaves. Already he has made improvement, because he has been on oxygen up until today. His sats were around 90% on room air.

So, Graysen continues to get better and better each day. He has recovered faster than expected and was called the "most placid" baby in the PCICU. He never fussed, recovered quickly, and just hung out. The doctor said that the only time they saw him get excited was when they first gave him the dose of morphine this morning. They said that it turned into party time for him, and he was playing with everyone. (They were all waiting for him to go under so they could remove the wires, but instead he wanted to party.)

Graysen really is a strong baby and tolerates these surgeries very well. Lee and I plan to spend the rest of the evening relaxing, and hopefully we will be on our way home soon.