A Big Jump

Last night was horrible! We found a pocket of puss on Bobby's incision sight. It looked like it was on the surface, but you have to be very careful with these things. Well, the doctors decided that a blood draw was necessary in order to make sure they treat the infection properly...unfortunately this was at midnight. Then when they were giving him the IV diuretic he started screaming that his hand hurt. Well, the new IV was bad already! So, at 1:15am, they had to put a new IV in which took until 2:00am. 5:00am was the normal chest x-ray, but thankfully they spared us the blood draw. We managed to sleep until 7:00am...what a night!

The original plan for today was to clamp the chest tube so that it wouldn't be able to drain in order to see how Bobby would handle the fluid on his own. They also wanted to up the IV diruetics to help him get rid of the extra fluid, and continue with an IV antibiotic to treat the incision sight. But as the lasix was going in through the IV, Bobby again started screaming. Our wonderful nurse spoke with the doctors about the lack of IV access for Bobby since he has had so many blood draws, but the resident and fellow insisted that he needed the IV. She then went to the attending physician who decided that if the IV couldn't be saved, we would do all oral medications. The IV team was not able to save the IV or find a new sight, so Bobby is on all oral medicine right now. These are 2 huge steps to take all at once, but would really move us forward if he can tolerate them. Today he seemed like himself, just pretty tired from the LONG night. The big test will be tomorrow morning's x-ray. The good news is that Bobby's heartrate, oxygen sats, and blood pressure have not shown any signs that he is not handling the fluid. I texted many people and appreciate your prayers because they seem to really be helping. We need those prayers to keep coming so that if it is God's will, we can go home soon! Thank you for continuing to remember our heart friends as well!

Rachael

P.S. I will try to update you about tomorrow's x-ray as soon as I can make it to the computer.