Wednesday, December 29, 2010

A very hungry baby..

.. is what I have right now. Evan had to stop being fed at midnight last night, and can't eat again until tomorrow morning. His g-tube surgery went well, it only took about 25 minutes and then he was wheeled back up to his room. The DR said it went great, his belly was a little inflamed so they are switching him from Zantac to Prevacid, which ironically is what helps my belly best too. When Evan got to his room, he was mad, real mad. I have never seen a baby suck a pacifier that hard lol It completely broke my heart. He was crying so hard and turning very dark purple. Just a FYI, shunt dependent babies like Evan are NOT supposed to be overstimulated and cry like he was. I was so scared, and there was absolutely nothing we could do to calm him down. The nurse was no where to be found so we had to have another nurse go get her. They gave Evan a dose of some medication that was supposed to calm him down and "take the edge off" but that didn't work. I tried cuddling him, rocking him, bouncing, nothing worked. She finally went and found the Dr and asked to give him tylenol. That didn't really help either. I ended up just holding him and played some music for him until he calmed down and went to sleep. It's miserable to have him stare at me like he's wondering why I'm not filling his belly. It's going to be a long night.. lol

A couple hours after the surgery, the nurse practioner came in and said she was going to go ahead and take out the LA line in his chest and his pacing wires since there has to be a surgeon in the hospital when they take them out, just in case there's bleeding around the heart. They put an IV into his arm since they have to have some kind of access while he's here, and then she removed the lines. The worst part was taking off the tape lol I was surprised at how well Evan handled it all. He went right back to sleep when it was finished, and even slept thru the echo scan afterwards. He's been sucking on his pacifier for over 5 hours now, which has never happened before. I can't wait to feed him tomorrow!

We've also been going thru a lot of discharge stuff today. We've gotten his prescriptions filled, I am going to pick them up tomorrow. One of the nurse practioners is faxing all of Evan's heart information to his pediatrician for his appointment on Monday. Evan's first out patient cardiologist appointment is set for 10 days after discharge. We got all kinds of syringes to administer medication and his pill cutter and crusher have been ordered. I've got all of his paperwork ready in his binder. It's been a busy day! Tomorrow we will just be feeding him and if he handles it all ok, then we should be getting out of here Friday afternoon. :)

Hopefully I will be posting my next update from my office at home! But if not, that's ok. As much as I want to be home, I have learned that things change quickly, and Evan does everything on his terms, so if he's not ready to go home, we will be just fine letting him recover at the hospital until he is ready.

I will leave off with a quote from one of the doctors, it's from this morning during rounds when he was talking to the cardiologist.. "Apparently no one told the baby he has hypoplastic left heart.." Evan is just such a miracle, he proves it every day.

1 comment:

  1. Awww... what a great thing for you to hear the doctor say. There is nothing that makes you feel better than when the doctors are amazed at your child, right? :) I'm glad his surgery went well and we will keep praying for you all to be going home very very soon. :)

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