Recovery Part 2

His incision was again leaking stool and his kidneys were trying to shut down. He was having one blood transfusion a day sometimes twice.

The surgeon interns where checking on him and realized that there looked as though there was fluid under his incision. They ended up opening it up and it drained a lot of dark blood. Dr. L. Who was a resident in the NICU told me all about it. They put in a penrose drain which basically looks like a little paper tube and it just drains to gravity. JT also had pressure dressings and a wet to dry dressing on his incision because now the incision was open and they wanted him to heal from the inside out.

Ok, I am not going to lie. It was gross. Stacy looked at it. I didn’t. They would have had to of scraped me up off of the ground. But, I did when I could, hold his hand with my eyes closed.
After the blood was drained, he was so much more comfortable. JT was still on the vent but, getting much more better. He was still having problems with his kidneys and not hardly urinating. So, they inserted a catheter to collect it and were testing it.
He had one bad night were his blood pressure kept dropping so, they gave him some dopamine to regulate it, this would also help with his pee issues. His kidneys were trying to shut down but, with the dopamine, it helped regulate his blood pressure and urine output.

Here is an excerpt from my CaringBridge Journal at that time.

Ok, here is what is going on. They decided not to do surgery. They are going to watch and wait.
He had a rough night. His blood pressure dropped and he is on dopamine to bring it up. He isn't giving any urine output and that is unusual because of the lasix they gave him. He should be peeing like a champ right now and he isn't. His potassium is high and sodium is low. So, they gave him some kind of enema that will help with that. Plus, they gave him a saline bolus to see if that will make him pee. They also inserted a catheder (my goodness how do you spell that?)
The surgeon is up there right now looking at him and the dr and the intern and the kidney doctor and they are all working on a plan let's pray they fine one that works.
He is not in any pain. They upped that too.
I can't think right now of what else they did. He is just really sick right now.
Vicky was his nurse last night and she said she loved on him and gave him a pep talk and talked him through everything she had to do to him and that it was to help him not hurt him. I really love that lady. She is awesome. Well, that is all for now.
All?? Really that is alot.


TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2007 08:36 PM, CST
Johnathan's incision opened up and the surgeon took out all of the stitches and now they have wet to dry dressing on it. They are going to put a wound vac on tomorrow.
But, he is peeing buckets and his blood pressure is stablizing.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2007 07:03 AM, CST
Johnathan had a relatively quiet night. They turned his oxygen down to 21% that is room air. They had to give him 2 extra doses of fentanyl and a dose of versil. He was in alot of pain. He is right now zonked out and not caring at the moment which is good. That is the way I want him. I don't want him to be in pain and panicky like. The wound vac goes on today and hopefully this will help him heal.

More on the Wound Vac later.

I think I am getting to the point where I can post some more of this up. I just sometimes get to where I am reliving it and it is a hard process. I prayed about it and I felt the Lord was telling me to take a break from it and I did. So, hopefully I am back at it.

Recovery part 1

When I got in to see him it was a relief. He was really sedated. The ventilator was doing all the work for him and I just whispered I loved him and that everything would be fine and he did great!!! I held his hand for a little while and just sat with him. I was really afraid to touch him because I didn’t want to hurt him. This surgery scared me that much. I was told he will probably be on the ventilator for a few days this time and they had a fentynal drip going for pain and it was at a high dosage because they wanted to keep him sedated. They didn’t want him to move at all.

The evening Stacy and I went up there to see him it was really scary because he was puffed up to twice his normal size which meant that he was retaining a lot of water. I mean to the point when they repositioned him you could see it move. And his eyes were bruised looking. He was in a lot of pain when they touched him to do his care, I seen him raise up off of the bed. He was trying to cry and pull out his vent. They gave him an extra shot of his fentanyl and it took a good 20 minutes for him to finally calm down.

I just wanted my baby back. The one that would just look at me like I was crazy. That I could cuddle and hold and make crazy conversation with. I am sure I mentioned this, but, people probably thought we were crazy. We talked and talked and talked to JT. I mean we held conversations with him about everything under the sun. I remember this one couple beside us. They always had a lot of family visit. I mean a lot like a family reunion up there. Which is great that means that they had wonderful family support. But, the baby would just sit in the crib and they would sit there and talk and hardly ever acknowledge the baby. We never stopped talking to JT. He was our world, our attention was all him. Unless he was asleep but, then that really didn’t stop us, we would wake him up. And 9 times out of 10 he wouldn’t care. I had to tell him about our day and what every one had been doing. Even when we were talking to doctor’s and such, we always included him. Talk and touch that was our motto. That was basically all that I had.

Back to JT. We took some pics while we were up there because even in the sedated state he was still hilarious. He was sleeping with his hand up to his face one finger on his lip as if to say….”wonder what they are gonna do this time?”

Recovery, Eye Surgery and a Big Boy Crib

JT had a few problems recovering from his bowel surgery. He was in a lot of pain. He would hold his breath and have lots of Brady’s. So, they put him on nose cannulas with 1liter of oxygen just to help him out a little. He still was at this time not getting any food. They were still waiting for a bowel movement. I got sick around this time and couldn’t get up to see him. Anytime that I thought that I was sick, I didn’t go up there. He didn’t need to be sick too. That would really hurt him. So, I stayed away for a couple of days. I think that he just needed to be held and told to straighten up and get better. We always had these little pep talks. I would tell him “Listen dude, you have to get better. The only way mommy can pick you up is if you are better.” This usually did the trick. He loved to be held and talked to. What baby doesn’t really? He just needed his mommy.

I remember going up there after I was sure that I wasn’t sick. I hadn’t been able to hold him for about 7 days. He was just in to much pain. Lisa was getting him dressed and then just plopped him in my arms. I was so scared that I would hurt him. I didn’t move. Tried not to breathe. And don’t you know he smiled at me. I relaxed a bit after that. I was so happy to be able to pick him up again that I just was smiling like a Cheshire cat. He still hadn’t had a bowel movement and he would just gnaw at my hands. His binkie wasn’t doing the trick. He knew what a full stomach felt like. And he wanted one. He had never had a bottle yet, everything he ate was through an NG tube. But, babies even if they haven’t been fed by a bottle still have that reflex.

Well, Wednesday came and he had another eye surgery. Poor kid just couldn’t take a break. But, as I found out with Johnathan. He always took the road less traveled. He didn’t do anything that was expected. He kept everyone on their toes. I remember thinking how terrible this was but, thinking about it he was probably happy for the paralytic and the anesthesia because he was in so much pain. He made it through the eye surgery with no complications. He slept most of the rest of the day and came off the vent with no problems at all. Which was good. I was kind of afraid that he wouldn’t because of the pain that he was in. But, he did.

The next day he had a bowel movement. I remember feeling so happy that hey this is one step closer to coming home. Alright. Yes, yes, yes! They started his feeds two days later. They started slow and at first he was tolerating them. He was calmer and I attribute that to the fact that his stomach wasn’t empty. He was just so content. He didn’t act like he was in pain or anything.

I walked in that night and also found out he was in a big boy crib. He was out of the warmer and had a crib. This was a big accomplishment. I almost walked past him because well, no one had told me about it. And he was dressed and he just looked so good and happy.