First...no more VTACs! (updated below)
Yesterday was a pretty quiet day. Daddy is really uncomfortable. They have not been able to take out the breathing tube yet. He has several other drainage tubes that are bothering him, too. Communication is really cumbersome and that's frustrating for both parties...by the time we figure out that he wants to be turned or have a towel under his feet, he has changed his mind...
Vision: A couple of days ago when they were sedating him a lot to quiet down the VTACs, his eyes were very unfocused and not tracking together. He would look in our direction when we spoke. He answered affirmative when asked if his vision was blurry. It was better yesterday in that he could look at the person speaking, but would still stare off and could not read lines of letters on the letterboard. He could nod at the correct letter when they were read out to him. Today he reports that his eyes are better but they don't seem to be quite back to normal.
Apparently he threw up Monday night, so they stopped the tube feed yesterday. I see that it's back on today.
Pain: As of yesterday, he was only on tylenol for pain, which seems a large step down from 10 mg oxycodone and fentanyl drip before that. We are wondering if he is lowballing his pain report to avoid sedation. It's only been 4 days since his breastbone was closed up, after all. Jaron's theory is that he doesn't want sedation bc it interferes with his breathing progress.
Breathing: Today his ventilator #s are 40% and 5. The 40% is the percentage of oxygen, which previously they had had to turn up to 60% because of the gunk in his lungs. The 5 has to do with the pressure and had previously been 8. They tell us that 40% and 5 are the low settings that he needs to be at in order to do breathing trials again. He's breathing 95% on his own and is currently doing a breathing trial since 6am today. The current plan is to see if he can keep doing that all day and they'll give him a break and put him back on the ventilator tonight. They will try again tomorrow morning and if all looks good with breathing, they can take the tube out tomorrow. Since he's been intubated for so long, a week now, we have been warned that it will take a little longer for him to recover with re-learning how to swallow, etc. The spot on his lung is getting smaller as seen in the x-rays, too. His lung gunk culture came back negative and there is less gunk when they suction out his lungs. He is still coughing, which is REALLY hard to watch. Whoever's sitting with him just squeezes his hand while he rides it out.
Meds: He is on a lot fewer drip medications and is being given some orally (thru the tube) again. They've been able to reduce the doses on many of them. They're figuring out the lowest effective dose of the stuff that helps his heart pump and the anti-arrhythmia drug. He also got a unit (300 ccs = ~1.5 cups) of blood. Apparently that was because his red cell count was low.
Movement: a physical therapist came by this morning and had him so some exercises. They moved him to a recliner and he's been wiggling his toes, picking up his feet, and picking up his arms.
His surgeon said that the right side of his heart was doing a lot better based on his blood pressure and pump flow #s.
So, he's improving slowly but surely. Last night we played some 70's music from Julie's Pandora station. Today we brought the ipod & speaker in that Julie brought for this purpose and will just leave it here for him tonight. He requested music last Sunday so Julie brought it back from DC, but when asked in the last several days did not want to listen to music. Last night he was "tapping" his feet to the music, so that was a definite positive. Jenny is showing him pictures from our quick trip to WV.
Update: he just had a small VTAC that stopped on its own. First one in 2.5 shifts.
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