A New Day…

They say that the first day after heart surgery is always the worst… “they” are older kids that have been interviewed. And they say that each day gets a little better.

Tiny P’s pain management is under control, and she has been able to sleep, and even eat a little. Yesterday she was taken off the external pacemaker, and her heart rate has slowly been climbing back up to normal. She was also taken off her dopamine for blood pressure, and that has been stable. She was able to get her atrial lines out this morning, and things are moving right along.

The only thing that is troubling the doctors is her oxygen saturations… tiny P’s O2 sats are usually steady at 82-84. But hers are much lower than that. Yesterday morning she received two blood transfusions to try and help with that, and it did for a while, but they dropped again. No worries, she is on supplemental oxygen, so they turned it up. And it was up to normal almost all night. everyone was happy with how it looked, so they weaned her off the oxygen. As soon as it was off, she dropped down to the 50s. Slightly alarming, so she is now back on oxygen, and it is back up to what it was on surgery day. She is still right around the 70 range, so we would like to see that go up.