The Pedialyte and pain meds helped Gavin get through the night with relative ease. He finally went into a deep sleep around 4:00 am. The nurse removed his catheter around 6:00 am and a lab tech did a heel stick for a blood draw, and he didn't wake up for either!
When Gavin woke up in the PICU, he gave me a hint of a smile - not much, but it was good enough for me!!! His left eye had started to bruise and swell a little during the night, but it wasn't too bad (yet!).
At 8:00 am, I was able to give him a bottle of breastmilk that I had pumped. He drank the first so fast that the nurse thawed a second bottle, which he also devoured. Since he was keeping everything down so well, we started giving him oral pain meds. They take longer to kick in, but the effect is longer-lasting than the IV pain meds. Also, the sooner he can just take oral pain meds, the sooner we can go home!!!!
At 9:00 am, the nurse came back to remove the artery line from his right wrist. It had been taking a beat-by-beat blood pressure measurement to make sure that he wasn't loosing any blood internally. Since he had been moving around so much, he had thrown the line out of whack and it wasn't working. The doctor was comfortable with it being out since he was doing so well, so the nurse let me hold him while she and another aid removed it. The line was sutured to his wrist underneath all the tape, so he was pretty unhappy having it removed, but I was so happy to hold him again (even if it was on a pillow) that I didn't mind at all!
It was a little difficult to hold him with all the tubes and wires connected to him, but Greg and I spent the rest of the time he was in the PICU holding him. His right eye continued to swell and bruise, but it didn't seem to bother him too much since he could still see out of it pretty well.
At 11:00 am, we were moved out of the PICU to a room in the regular pediatrics unit. We were able to let family members hold him, and his vitals only had to be checked every 4 hours instead of constantly. We kept giving him bottles of pumped breastmilk and the oral pain meds, and he seemed to be able to rest pretty well.
At 8:30 pm, we asked for him to receive the IV pain meds since he was getting pretty agitated. He wouldn't take a bottle and was clearly uncomfortable. When the nurse tried to push the meds through his running IV line in his left foot/ankle, the meds wouldn't go through. They unwrapped the tape to find that all his kicking had pulled the plastic IV needle out a bit and then kinked it. Since the IV was useless, they removed it. They pushed the meds through the standing IV port in his right foot instead. (Thank goodness they left both in after surgery. I think if they had to stick him with another needle I would have cried!) By this time, his right eye had turned into quite the shiner and he was not really able to see out of it.
He was finally able to fall asleep and stayed asleep until the nurse came in to check his vitals around midnight. He woke up agitated, but they didn't want to give him oral meds since he hadn't taken a bottle since 6:00 pm and wouldn't take one when offered. I explained to the nurse that he had never had a bottle before this hospitalization, and she agreed that breastfeeding him would probably be best. Even though they aren't able to measure exactly how much he is getting, he would at least be eating!It took a few minutes for him to get comfortable and latch, but he ate like a champ! It was as though he was so relieved to be nursing again - he fell asleep in my arms. The nurse took the opportunity to remove the heart monitors stuck to his chest, so the only thing left on him was the IV port in his right foot.
The nurse woke us both around 4:00 am to have him nurse again, and he was able to have the oral pain meds again. He went right back to sleep and slept in until 9:00 am!
These 2 days in the hospital feel like they have lasted a week. They have been hard, but all I have to do is walk down the halls of the pediatric unit and I am reminded of how good we really have it. We have been, and continue to be so blessed.
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