by The last couple of days have been slow but steady progress. AJ has been coming down on his ventilator settings, with hope that we may be able to try taking his tube out sometime this week. Try being the key word!
He came down off of most meds except milrinone for his heart, lasix to help get fluid off of him, lovenox for his blood clots and was then added on to fentanyl for pain/anxiety. He hadn’t been very awake until recently, and the past couple of days being awake he’s been pretty testy and impatient, which has resulted in his oxygen saturation dropping during an episode. It’s possible he’s just angry and annoyed at the breathing tube, so the hope is that maybe once that’s out he will be better. There’s no guarantee though, it’s a bit of a scientific guessing game at this point.
He did have his chest drainage tube removed last night, and his pacing wires were taken out as well. Some of his lines were taken out as well, so he’s far less attached and has fewer tubes and wires than he did. He still has a PD drain, an arterial line in his left hand for monitoring and blood draws, a line that goes straight to his heart that was placed during surgery, and a line in his right foot being used for his meds and nutrition.
He had started feeds a couple of days ago and didn’t tolerate it well. At the time it was an NG tube, so the thought is he just didn’t like food in his tummy yet. So his feeding tube was changed yesterday to an ND tube and he’s tolerating that well enough that they were able to increase his feed amount slightly.
Aside from that – we used some more air miles to bring Aaron back up this weekend. Averie will be staying home for now, but Aaron’s definitely excited to see his boy again.
Thank you, again, to everyone who has donated and continues to donate. I know there are a few of you who are giving continuous donations – a coffee a week, etc… We have also had people give us gift cards, a transit pass, care packages, dinners, etc. some of these people are folks we haven’t even met before. We continue to be absolutely blown away by the love and support we’ve received. It’s definitely appreciated and helps keep us more focused on AJ and his recovery rather than how we are going to afford everything, which is a huge stress relief and blessing by itself.
We still have a long road to go, it’s still unknown yet when we will transfer to the step down unit and out of CICU, and beyond that it’s unknown when we will be released home or what kind of home care he will need. Beyond that, we still have two more surgeries to go, and although the odds are better for the subsequent surgeries, they are all still high risk. Please keep the healing thoughts and prayers coming!
