Clamped

Ada has had her chest tube clamped now for almost 24 hours. She went for an echo and it still showed some fluid around the heart. But the doctors didn't seem too concerned and I think for now they are going to leave it clamped and possibly try to feed her tomorrow then recheck the heart with some more imaging .She has had a low grade fever today and has not slept hardly at all. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some good news.

Blue vs. Pink

Okay so we are still here at the hospital. They have just started her on TPN (total parenteral nutrition) that is how we are feeding her. She can no longer eat by mouth. But I will say that she has been pretty good about it. We found that she will take a binki where she didn't before. But I will say this, if you were a girl baby would you prefer a pink binki or a nasty blue one? We replaced the blue one with a pretty pink one. So with that taken care of we can now place a picc line today. They are going to do it under fluoroscopy because she has horrible veins. That way they can place a dye in the iv she already has and see where to put the picc line. As you can see from the picture she is still putting out a ton of fluid from around her heart. Yuck!! Hopefully being NPO (nothing by mouth) will help slow the process. If not then the next step is surgery to clamp the vessels that are leaking.

Back in the Hospital

We are back in the hospital with Ada. At her follow up checkup for her heart surgery they found that she had fluid around her heart. So they decided to take her to the cath lab to tap the fluid off. When they did this the color of the fluid looked like milk. That is not good. She is leaking lymphatic fluid around her heart. It is called chylothorax. One of her lymphatic vessels was nicked during the surgery, or so they think. The drain is still in place and we are manually pulling the fluid off every two hours. It is finally starting to slow up. We checked an echo this morning to see how things are looking. If things slow down more then they will clamp the drain and recheck another echo to make sure no more fluid is accumulating. So an overnight stay is turning out to be a weekend stay. (I hope not longer!) If things don't slow up then the only other option is to go back to surgery. We are trying to be optimistic. The doctors and nurses here are wonderful and provide great care. For that I am greatful. I am just missing my other children. But I know that they are in great hands! Thanks to grandparents, family, and friends!!

Peri-cardial Effusion

Ada went for her post-op check up today. They did her chest x-ray and her heart is larger today then it was on discharge. That is not good. She has a moderate amount of fluid around her heart. They put her on some prednisone to try to help. If the fluid doesn't come off then she will have to have a drain placed to pull off the fluid. Which means another hospital stay. I hope that the prednisone works. Unfortunately I put some of the medicine in her bottle and she would not take it. AARGH! So we get to go back to Primary's next week to see if the steroid is working. The good news is she is over 12 pounds, so she is growing slow but sure.

Discharged Home!

Yeah we are finally home! Ada's abdominal xray looked good again today. So they said she could come home. She is still having diarrhea, but if it persists we will follow up with her pediatrician. She looks so good. When we got her in the house she was relieved she started smiling and talking. I think she missed being at home. We will go for a follow up visit to the surgeon's clinic on the 23rd of July. We are so glad to have her home.

One More Day (hopefully)

So Ada's blood work and abdominal xray all came back normal. The doctors want to watch her another day to make sure that nothing's wrong. She is completely off of oxygen and is only taking tylenol for pain. She is doing so well. Hopefully she won't have anymore bloody stools. She is so dang cute!

Can You Do This?

Hey Grandpa Woodruff, could you do this after your open heart surgery? Tonight has been another rough night. Today she had blood in her stool, not a lot at first, but her last diaper had bright red blood in it. So it is 10:30 at night and we drew more blood for labs and went down for an x-ray of her tummy. What next? Other than that she is doing so much better. She feels better I can tell. Today she was rolling all over her crib. She's amazing. I hope that we can figure this all out so that we can get her home!