Not much to report for today – David did well and tolerated a slight weaning one of his sedation meds. He had another bloody stool last night and one this afternoon. X-rays still look fairly good, so they will continue to monitor it, and his feeds are still paused at the moment. He also had his temperature start creeping up this afternoon, but I think it’s starting to creep back down. If he gets a fever, they will likely start him on some antibiotics.
David tolerated being awake fairly well today. He had another new nurse, but she did phenomenal with him by allowing him to do his David stuff (because he usually recovers within a matter of seconds). I was very pleased she was not scared of him. We’ve had a few issues lately where the default method seems to be sedate to avoid swings, and we are trying to combat. She did have to pace him once for about 10 minutes when his heart rate went down and didn’t immediately come back up. Overall, she gave him very little additional sedation – it will be interesting to see how much he received overnight.
At the request of the nurse practitioners, we met with one of the charge nurses today to talk about continuity in David’s care since it seems as if we will be in the CVICU for several more weeks. We also learned a few things as we thought we had continuity until recently. Apparently, there are different levels of nurses on the unit, and since David was so critical for so long, he was at the top of the list to receive the most skilled ones. Now that he’s getting better and a little less demanding, those nurses get assigned to other very critical patients – although David likes to have competitions with those patients. So, we went over all the nurses we have had to come up with a list of various nurses who know David and therefore won’t have as much of a learning curve if they get assigned to him. I’m still hoping for a couple of the ones we really like, but hopefully we’re in a better spot moving forward and have less of a new nurse every day situation we currently have going on.
We also learned that David’s next heart cath might be as soon as later this week! This cath would measure pressures, much like the cath that took place on February 2nd did. At that time, the pressure gradients were quite large, so it will be interesting to see where they are now. I’m not sure which access sites they will use as entry for the cath since I think both of his femoral arteries now have clots – perhaps the neck area? Or perhaps they can use the vein rather than the artery. It sounds like David’s heart is also functioning at the low-end of normal. We’re not really sure what that means – it was just how the cardiologist read the echo and explained it. She would like to start him on a medication he was on before when we were home. I think the plan is to start it after extubation.
Each doctor also does things differently. Last week, the doctor did a lot of pressure support trials to prepare for extubation. The doctor on this week has decided to reduce David’s vent rate and his PEEP since that is equivalent. David has been doing great on those vent settings. It sounds like they will try to extubate him again sometime this week. This time he has been getting the fluid off of him fairly well, so it is promising it may work this time.
In addition to David’s mysterious bloody stools, he also had some bluish discharge from his NG tube (the tube that is in his stomach that is being used as a type of vent to get gasses and such out since David cannot burp). No one could pinpoint what was causing the bluish color. Some medications can do it, but none of them are medications David is currently taking. So, it was a fun mystery and others kept coming in to check it out.
Today was also Broadway Hearts Bingo. They seem to do this once a month where they zoom with some broadway singers and they sing songs related to the bingo squares. David got a Bingo yet again! He’s pretty talented in that category – maybe that’s another one of his super powers.
Eli and Anna got a holiday from visiting the hospital today as they started back up with swimming lessons. We’re hoping for another uneventful night and hopefully another good day tomorrow.
👍🏻🎉🥳Super David Rocks a great day! You have a fantastic care team and progressing well ❤️ Prayers for continued blessings from our heavenly Father 🙏🏼 I bet you enjoyed your swim time Eli and Anna 🏊🏼♀️🏊🏼♂️
Relatively uneventful days are good! Continued hope for steady progress with only a few David moments!
Glad to see positive progress again. Pretty soon you two will be qualified for a medical degree after all this experience. Hope to see even more good news tomorrow. Love from Kathy and Rocky the wonder dog.