Another Day in CICU

Jereth is doing really well. He is smiling and cooing again! This morning it looked like we would be heading out of cardiac intensive care today.

Jereth pulled out his feeding tube during the night and went without food until the doctors came on rounds. The nurse was hoping to convince them that Jereth no longer needs the feeding tube to go beyond the stomach. The doctors agreed and we won't have to take him to emergency every time he pulls his tube out. (Yay!!) Roy and I can replace the tube when Jereth pulls it out if it only has to go to his stomach.

We are still in the cardiac ICU for a couple of reasons. First, the surgical floor doesn't feel like they can deal with a child on high-flow. Because of this Jereth has been taken off high-flow and is using a regular nasal canula and is on straight oxygen instead of room air. He is doing well with this but it is different from what he will have when we go home.

The second reason is that he had some fluid drainage from his chest drain tubes that might have contained lymph fluid. Sometimes during surgery some of the tiny lymph ducts get cut allowing fats from the lymphatic system to drain into the chest cavity. This can build up and put pressure on the lungs without a chest tube. Since Jereth still has a chest tube any fluid can be drained off. However, if the drainage continues and has fats in it he will have to keep the chest tube and have a change of diet until the lymph ducts can heal and no longer allow fats to drain into the chest cavity. We should know by tomorrow morning if this will keep us in the hospital longer.

Jereth also had a sedated echocardiogram (ultrasound of his heart) this afternoon - it was helpful that he had gone without food for a few hours so the sedation could be easily done. There were several echocardiograms done today, so we still have not received the results and don't have that confirmation that the surgery went well. This is another thing we  should know by morning rounds.