Post-Fontan Day 5

Hello, Tuesday! Let's see what you had in store for us! For starters, we were moved to the cardiac step-down unit on 8D. We still have 3 chest tubes, pacing wires, a central IV and a nasal cannula of O2. So really, we haven't made any progress today compared to yesterday.

The good news is that his drainage is continuing to decrease somewhat significantly, which is AWESOME. The less good news is that he still hasn't increased his food and fluid intake. He did have tiny bites of a few things throughout the day, and I'm hopeful they will all eventually add up to enough to ease his stomach pain and start to indicate whether or not he's going to have issues with the fat in his diet with his new circulation.

Speaking of pain, he's still only on Tylenol, but the staff here on 8D prefer to also push Oxyxodone q4. We haven't given him Oxy since the barf incident Saturday morning, but we were still able to manage his pain in the PCICU through morphine and versed. Unfortunately, those meds aren't really "allowed" in 8D. So now we're looking at gambling with his delicate belly situation by dosing some Oxy tonight around midnight. I am praying we don't start back over at zero with this causing him to vomit again.

I'm expecting a long night ahead. The nurses will be in every 2 hours to measure his chest tube output. They'll be in at midnight to push lasix and zofran via IV, and possibly the Oxy (PO). They're back again at 2am for fluid check, then 4am for Tylenol and/or more Oxy, depending on how he does. There will most likely be a chest x-ray between 4-6am as well, not to mention frequent potty trips for Chase that require at least 4 hands to make happen. This will all be pretty standard with our nights on 8D. Color me thrilled!

We're hopeful to get Chase to the children's atrium (play room) tomorrow to get him moving around and to try to pull out that stubborn fluid. We'd love to get LO up here as well to play with Chase in the atrium, but we'll see how the night goes.