We were very anxious for the first few days after surgery. They kept him pretty heavily sedated and on a lot of pain medicine. He was also on the ventilator as well. The goal was to let his body recover for a few days and very slowly let him wake up after they saw how his body was reacting to everything.
One of the biggest issues that Ridge kept having was that his blood pressure kept dropping. He was on 3 different medicines plus he had the one blood transfusion after surgery to help with this. Dr. Mendeloff wasn't too concerned with the blood pressure drops and said that it was common for babies to have issues after heart surgery. By Tuesday evening he was still having drops in blood pressure but they were able to control it just by adjusting his meds and they didn't need to give him another blood transfusion. His blood sugars were also quite high so they started him on some insulin to help control them. The other thing they were most concerned with was that his kidneys hadn't kicked back in yet so he wasn't peeing very much. This was leading to a lot of swelling because the fluid was just building up inside him and wasn't being released. They said the pediatric kidney doctor would come take a look at him on Wednesday just to make sure nothing more serious was going on. Even with all of these issues, they said that it was all very normal and that he was doing well. It was hard to believe when so many things kept happening but they assured us that he was headed in the right direction.
Wednesday morning we got a call from the hospital that they had to do another operation on Ridge. He had a pocket of air building up above his lungs which was putting pressure on his lungs and would make it harder to breathe. They inserted a tube so they could drain the air out. As soon as they put in the tube, air came out which was a good sign and the X-ray they did after showed that most of the air had left his body. They also said he had started peeing more through the night which was a good sign that his kidneys were starting to work again. The pediatric kidney doctor wasn't worried about anything being wrong when he came to look at Ridge. They tried taking him off one of the blood pressure medications over night but they had to add a small dose of it back in because after a while his blood pressure started dropping a bit. Overall they said things were still going well. By the time I got to the hospital that afternoon, they had taken his chest tube out, and took the bandage off that was covering his incision.
As I was leaving the hospital Wednesday evening, Ridge woke up and looked around for a few seconds. It made me so sad seeing his little eyes open with him hooked up to everything. They assured me that he wasn't in any pain, but I just wanted him to sleep through all of this. I know he won't remember this, but it breaks my heart seeing him like this. I cried almost the whole way home from the hospital.
The thing I have been totally amazed with through this whole process is how heart surgery doesn't just affect the heart. It affects the entire body. All of his organs, his circulatory system, his eating, his breathing. His body has to figure out how to pump the blood differently once they put the shunt in and it just takes a toll on his whole body. We are so blessed to live at this time because the medical knowledge and advances have come so far. I've thought about how many babies were born with this same condition that didn't make it because the doctors didn't have the knowledge on how to fix it. I'm sure so many babies were experimented on trying to find solutions for all the problems that can arise so that now these doctors know exactly what to do to be able to remedy the problems.
It was a relief to get through the first 48 hours, but there was still a long way to go to full recovery for Ridge.
One of the biggest issues that Ridge kept having was that his blood pressure kept dropping. He was on 3 different medicines plus he had the one blood transfusion after surgery to help with this. Dr. Mendeloff wasn't too concerned with the blood pressure drops and said that it was common for babies to have issues after heart surgery. By Tuesday evening he was still having drops in blood pressure but they were able to control it just by adjusting his meds and they didn't need to give him another blood transfusion. His blood sugars were also quite high so they started him on some insulin to help control them. The other thing they were most concerned with was that his kidneys hadn't kicked back in yet so he wasn't peeing very much. This was leading to a lot of swelling because the fluid was just building up inside him and wasn't being released. They said the pediatric kidney doctor would come take a look at him on Wednesday just to make sure nothing more serious was going on. Even with all of these issues, they said that it was all very normal and that he was doing well. It was hard to believe when so many things kept happening but they assured us that he was headed in the right direction.
Wednesday morning we got a call from the hospital that they had to do another operation on Ridge. He had a pocket of air building up above his lungs which was putting pressure on his lungs and would make it harder to breathe. They inserted a tube so they could drain the air out. As soon as they put in the tube, air came out which was a good sign and the X-ray they did after showed that most of the air had left his body. They also said he had started peeing more through the night which was a good sign that his kidneys were starting to work again. The pediatric kidney doctor wasn't worried about anything being wrong when he came to look at Ridge. They tried taking him off one of the blood pressure medications over night but they had to add a small dose of it back in because after a while his blood pressure started dropping a bit. Overall they said things were still going well. By the time I got to the hospital that afternoon, they had taken his chest tube out, and took the bandage off that was covering his incision.
Here is a picture of the tube they put in his side to drain the pocket of air that was building up.
It was a relief to get through the first 48 hours, but there was still a long way to go to full recovery for Ridge.
No comments:
Post a Comment