Day #7 post-op

12:33 a.m.
Scott is taking the first sleep shift tonight.  Shelby is resting peacefully.  They've been able to come down on her morphine drip today, she's tolerating her feeds, she's hardly needed any prn's and she continues to handle her vent and NO setting decreases.  Once again, if this path continues the plan is to extubate her after rounds in the morning around 11 a.m.  I am excited and nervous.  Pray for all to go well please :-)

2:25 p.m.
Nap was great!  Scott is still at Kohl's House sleeping.  I think he's about 2 years behind on his sleep :-O  We have AMAZING nurses here allowing us to feel o.k. to rest while she's sedated.  I napped in her PICU room, but slept through all her cares.  Shelby has had a great day.  She has been resting fabulously.  More vent settings have come down, the NO level came down, her insulin drip has been stopped (fingers crossed it doesn't have to be restarted) and they began giving her Pediasure through her ng tube.  She actually had an anderson tube in her nose that is for draining and in surgery yesterday they put a feeding tube in her other nostril.  Today the anderson was able to pulled :-)  Happy Mama here!  If things keep progressing this way the plan is to extubate her tomorrow :-)

9:14 a.m.
Ultrasound looks great!!!  Working towards extubation tomorrow.  Now off to nap :-)

4:41 a.m.

Night went very well.  Scott and I were very confident in her "new" sedative and with our night nurses that we actually left around 10 to go nap at Kohl's House.  That is a *first* for us to leave her without any family here.  That "nap" lasted until 3:30 a.m.  Ahhhh.....feels good.  Now we're back over here and she did great while we were gone.  A few times she got her prn's because her blood pressure went up a tad, but they were able to come down on several vent settings.  Since she's been on the vent for almost a week, its no surprise to see on her chest x-ray some fluid at the base of her lungs.  They are not expanding all the way so they have that particular vent setting a little higher than when she went in surgery.  She's taking more breaths on her own, though; just not full ones.  Around 7:30 she should get her ultrasound and the surgeon should be here for it because if there are any problems they'll take her back to the OR asap.  Pray that blood is flowing just fine. :-)