Getting There!

When I got to the CICU this morning after the change of shift, at 7:45, Piper had, apparently, finally fallen asleep.  I think she’s starting to like the 4am parties in her crib.  I, on the other hand (and the nurse she had last night, for that matter), don’t have the same affinity for the soirees.  They took her arterial line out this morning after the morning labs were run.  It’s a huge plus, because arterial lines are notorious for infection.  Yeah!

She stayed asleep for a bit, until they decided to take out her chest drain.  Another big woohoo!  Although she wasn’t a big fan of getting it out, I’m sure that it felt better to not have a quarter-inch tub running up into her chest.  After it was out, look who greeted me (with a hairbow!!!)!

She was definitely still out of it, not terribly sturdy, and horribly swollen, but she even took something to drink from me.  AND she got to have some breakfast.  We treated her to pudding and pancakes; two delicacies she never gets to have at home. 

After they watched her for a bit after taking the tube out, we were cleared to go back to the standard surgical floor.  Not even the intermediate cardio wing! 

She’s hurting pretty good today, but dealing pretty well.  She’s moving around quite a bit on her own.  I’m not encouraging to do anything, but allowing her to do what she pleases, including standing up in, and cruising around, her crib.  (Note: yes, this has given ME a mild heart attack every time.  Apparently it’s not too bad, and I’m over-reacting…). 

Piper plays the sympathy card well.  She never gets to watch TV.  Ever.  Unfortunately, when you’re confined to a bed because you have leads that come off very easily watching to make sure that your heart is okay, TV is an easy thing to have on to give her something to do.  Terrible, I know.  But there’s only so many toys that can keep a very active child busy in a 4 1/2’x2 1/2’ barred box.  And really, until today, I feel like I’ve been really successful in not using TV as a source of entertainment.  But when the anesthesiologist came by tonight, Piper finally saw the TV, and didn’t. take. her. eyes. off. it.  I ended up putting a blanket over the end of the crib to prevent her from watching it.  I know.  Mean momma.  BUT, tonight, when I was trying to eat dinner, I went ahead and turned on the TV and let her watch.  She was SO excited…

She’ll be on IV pain meds through tomorrow afternoon, and then we’ll wean down to Tylenol.  If she really needs, they’ll let her have Morphine, but it’s been doing really nasty things to her blood pressure (she’s been running down around 73/31, instead of 92/45, like they’d like), so I’d rather not take her home on it.  We’ll see how she does with things tomorrow and go from there. 

She was off O2 this morning when I went in for the first time.  But tonight she’s having a little bit of a hard time keeping above 86, so she’s on a bit of blow-by.  I think she’s just not wanting to inhale deeply while she’s sleeping.  Thankfully we have one more night here to make sure she’s back to normal before we go home. 

The plan is to go home on Thursday!  We’ve gotten several visits from the therapy dogs, which Piper has loved, but I’m sure she’ll be glad to get back to her doggies. 

And me?  I’ll be stoked to have my bed back…

…and shave my legs…  But I didn’t admit to that…