Post-op Days 4 & 5

Yesterday (Tuesday) was Caleb's post-op day #4. When we arrived at the hospital that morning, the nurse said they were getting ready to do another echo. The day before, we had been told that they wouldn't repeat one until Wednesday unless he showed signs of distress. Caleb was still doing well, though, and the doctor just wanted to see if his new meds were working. The echo on Monday showed enough tricuspid regurgitation that they were concerned. The doctor said that if they hadn't caught it on Monday's echo, Caleb would have began showing signs of distress by Tuesday. Well, the echo on Tuesday only showed "trivial" regurgitation! The doctor seemed a little surprised about how well Caleb was responding to the medication. She wanted to continue the medication and do another echo on Wednesday. The rest of the day went well enough. Caleb did really well with his bottles and was very alert.

When we arrived at the hospital this morning (Wednesday, post-op day #5) we were told that Caleb struggled with his bottles overnight. I thought that maybe the nurse had been lazy and didn't try hard enough with him. But then I tried to feed him, and I could tell that something didn't seem right. Sorry, nurse! He seemed very sleepy and disinterested. We're not sure if it was because of possible constipation or maybe some low blood sugar, but we're now trying to take care of both. He received some medicine to help with constipation, and we've increased his feeds to a level closer to what he was taking before surgery. He had an echo done shortly after noon, and it showed even less regurgitation than the day before. The nurse practitioner said there was none. So whether it was none or "less than trivial", it wasn't much!

Unless things change overnight, the plan is to move out of CVICU and to the cardiac floor tomorrow. We thought we were going to move on Monday. We thought we were going to move today. So we're hopeful about moving tomorrow, but we're not packing Caleb's bag yet. He is receiving excellent care from the team in the CVICU, and we trust that they will move him when the time is right.