Evan 2 days post surgery
Evan continues to make steady progress and has been showing signs that his body is turning a corner, giving the doctors a lot of optimism in his recovery.
– He is continuing to be weaned from various blood pressure medications. The nurses continued to dial down his epinephrine dosing to reach the level his doctors wanted and Evan responded very well.
– His lungs still sound a little crackly but he has been initiating his own breaths while still on the ventilator. Per his medical team, his vent was initially set to a “volume” setting and they typically don’t use this setting so it was giving him a little more help than usual. But today they were able to change from the “volume” setting to whatever their typical setting is and they are also able to wean him down from that setting as well. So lots of progress on the vent! Overnight, they are going to attempt to run some breathing sprints, where they turn the vent down so Evan would essentially be breathing on his own but with the tubing in place. They sprint for about an hour, give the patient time to rest, and repeat it a couple more times. They just want to make sure that when they take someone off the vent the person will not have to go back on it. Even if he breaths on his own, they will leave the tubing in place due to his still high fluid volumes.
– Evan gained about 2 lbs after surgery and I would say most of that was fluid retention. They have been giving him Lasix through his broviac catheter and they added another diuretic to the mix to speed up the process. Boy did it work. He lost about a half-pound of fluid in a few hours. He even blew out his diaper a couple times, much to the annoyances of his nurses. Getting rid of the extra fluid around his chest and belly is a big step toward being able to remove the vent and being transferred out of the PCTU.
– Evan is still suffering from complete heart block. I don’t know if it is a matter of still being weaned by other things or giving his body more time to heal as to whether or not he will be able to shake this. It is the most serious remaining complication he has and if not remedied he will need a pacemaker.
– Evan started to receive some IV nutrition today. Previously he was just recuperating and getting nutrition is a good sign. Next he will move onto using his feeding tube, then the bottle, and hopefully back to breastfeeding. One step at a time tho.
