Surgery Update 13

9:40 pm - Everything is still going well. Emma is still bloated and puffy, and they are about to give her a large dose of Albumin to help move the fluid from her tissues into her blood vessels. She had been receiving regular doses of Lasix to help with the bloating, and that is now being given on a continuous drip, so hopefully the swelling will go down soon.

She is now taking formula from a bottle, which is another milestone. She had her catheter removed earlier. Dr. Kaza had told us early this afternoon that he would probably remove the chest tubes tomorrow morning, but later recanted, citing concern for the for the amount of fluid still draining from her chest cavity (which, by the way, is not unusual at this stage of recovery from open heart surgery). She also has quite a bit of fluid in her lungs that needs to work itself out. Today's X-rays show less fluid than yesterday, so it is improving. Another big milestone for today is that Emma is now off of the heart medications.

Emma received a priesthood blessing tonight, during which she cried quite a bit. The nurse came in midway through to give her some additional pain medication. She is now asleep, and resting peacefully, although she stirs and waves her arms around from time to time.

Several people have asked how we're holding up throughout all of this. I don't think we've thought very much about ourselves, as Emma is our main focus, but I think we're doing pretty well, all things considered. We are staying at nearby hotel, literally about a 5-minute walk from the hospital. At least one of us is with Emma around the clock, except for twice daily when they make everyone leave the PICU for an hour while they do their shift change (tonight we used that hour to go to dinner together, and it was actually nice to get away from the hospital for a bit). We are taking turns getting a few hours of sleep at a time while the other one stays at the hospital with Emma. We also have periods where we are both here in the room with her.