PCICU Day 2

I'm starting to struggle with deciding on which photos to post. Part of me wants to post the "full" picture to REALLY show you what this little baby girl has to endure and go through, and the other part of me wants to protect her innocence. Will she one day be mad at me for posting all these photos so publicly, or will she be proud like I am and want share her story too? I think for right now, I'll keep the pictures simple - especially while her chest is still open and she's still heavily sedated and intubated.

Anyways onto today: It's amazing that lots still happens on a "quiet" day. While on the PCICU, she has one-to-one care, which means that she has a nurse that tends to her at all times. Rounds were done around 9:30am, and we meet her intensivist Dr. Garros and the care team, and they went over her current status. 

Her chest is still open, so the goal is to close it either tomorrow or Thursday (I'm really hoping for tomorrow). Today they are just keeping everything status quo as she's still in serious, but stable condition. They're just keeping her sedated and as comfortable as possible while she starts to somewhat heal. They've had to give her some paralytics as she moves too much when she gets too stimulated or agitated. For pain management, she's on morphine and ketamine. Yesterday evening they took her off epinephrine, but they had to put her back on it today (but just a very small amount).

She had a little fever this morning, but Dr. Garros said that's to be expected, and just a sign of her system kicking in. They would only begin to worry about a fever when it's been several days since surgery. In the meantime they have just been using a cold cloth in her head to help her maintain a body temperature of 37.5°C. Her feet were very cold this morning, but they've slowly warmed up throughout the day, and she's still a little swollen. They started Lasix (which is a diurectic) this afternoon to "dry her out" so they can hopefully close her up tomorrow. Her blood gas levels have been excellent and her blood pressure has been very good throughout the day. 

Her oxygen levels have been a little all over the place ranging anywhere between 50-90, but mostly staying within the 70-85 range. 

Overall, other then a few minor dips, she's been quite stable all day long. Thank you again for all the texts, comments and messages. I'll continue to update when I have time.

xo The Irvine Family