Thursday, August 4, 2005

Thursday, August 4, 2005 9:30 PM CDT

This is Susan. Nathan is continuing to do well. Now that he has been off the ventilator for a while he needs to be taking deeper breaths and coughing more to keep his lungs inflated. We are having to hassle him to do it. The coughing hurts his incision and so he is reluctant (of course). He is being very good and very brave about it all. He has even attempted a few smiles today.

His chest tube was removed this afternoon and as soon as his bowels move a little he will be on his wa y out of the ICU. They expect him to go back to Sloan tomorrow. He will go to the POU (pediatric observation unit) at first. Right now it is full - so we will have to see if a slot opens up.

He was awake a good part of the day and watched a lot of TVs and movies. It was nice to be able to have a conversation with him after having him trying to tell us things with the tube down his throat.

His puffiness has gone WAY down today. We almost felt as if we could just watch it going down. After surgery - these kids are EXTREMELY puffy. Nathan could really only open hisright eye a slit and his left not at all until later this morning. He is starting to look like Nathan again.

After his surgery ended he was in the recovery room getting ready to be moved by ambulance across the street. They were breathing for him with a hand respirator and he was hooked up to everything and very puffy and there was about 8 people working on him. It was surreal...I just looked at Luke and told him it was just so wrong see your own child like that. I know we have become way desensitized to all of these things medical - but for some reason it really hit me watching him like this - it just is not right.....The nurses were saying how good it was that he copes so well (this is while he was having some unpleasant procedure done today) and I said that yes - it is good, but it is really sad that he has to.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers and your guestook entries. We really appreciate all of you.

I am at the apartment tonight while Luke stays with Nathan (we were both there last night - Luke slept in a chair most of the night while I got the "chair bed"). Luke will probably update on how his night went when he come back here in the morning.



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Thursday, August 4, 2005 8:04 AM CDT

Just a quick update. Nathan's move over to the PICU in the other hospital went fine. He really didn't have any complications through the night. I was out of the room when he first woke up. Susan tells me he was pretty upset by the tube down his throat. He was more awake and aware of that then we would have liked, but he slept pretty well through the night. I guess he calmed down in not too long (10 to 15 minutes). Then he went into brave Nathan cope mode and just dealt with it. He would wake up from time to time and be aware of the tube, but didn't fuss about it much. They extubated this morning. All of his tests and bloodwork show that he is recovering pretty well. It was nice to get extubated so quickly. He doesn't seem to be in too much pain and it sure is nice to hear him talking a little after being extubated.

We don't really have an idea yet as to when he may move back to Sloan. I expect that he will stay in the PICU again tonight at the very least. I think they will wait until his chest tube is removed and he is less reliant on the pain medication.

As always, thank you for your prayers, good thoughts, and notes of support.