Monday, August 24, 2009

August 24, 2009 Post Surgery











I want to start off by apologizing for missing the last few days. We have been terribly exhausted and I just haven't had the energy to stay up late updating the blog. I am going to try and fill it out earlier in the day somehow, but thank you for all you patience.





Gabe is doing very well after his surgery! He has a nice 3" scar on his chest and abdomen that he can tell cool stories about when he gets older. We joke around saying he was in a knife fight with a surgeon and lost or he was scuba diving and was bitten by a shark. I'm sure we will come up with more. Gabe has been maintain his airway and still has two lungs that are not collapsing and the chest x-rays are looking great. Yesterday Gabe was a little unhappy and we couldn't see why until our awesome nurse "L" saw that his catheter was not working. She removed it and I could almost see an expression of relief. Imagine not being able to pee for a very long time, that can't feel good. Today Gabe had his right chest tube removed since they haven't been seeing any more fluid come out over the past few days and they don't see any on x-ray. They will continue to monitor his chest x-rays to watch for a re-accumulation, as we have seen Gabe do in the past. But lets hope its just that, past. Gabe's left chest tube on the other hand is giving us a bit of trouble. Gabe's left chest tube stopped putting out fluid suddenly and that kind of worried us. Then he started leaking the fluid from around were the tube goes into his skin. Poor little Gabe would have to be cleaned constantly to keep him from lying in it. Shannon and I strongly believe that the tube is plugged as it has in the past. We just asked if he could get a new one, but they have different plans. The doctors decided to pull the tube back a little bit which might have gotten it in a better position. This of course did not work. When they pull it back, it requires them to remove the stitches that hold it in, pull it back and then re-stitch it. Then with the new stitches it no longer leaked, which means its accumulating in his chest. They are now going to try and pull it back even further, which I know is not going to work. If it still doesn't work, they will then try to clean the tube out with a kind of "liquid draino". If that still doesn't work, then they will put in a new chest tube. Personally I think he is going to be in more pain and be at a higher risk to infection doing it their way. I think they should just do it one time and be done. But I'm no expert, I just like to fix things one time and not have to come back to it. Some people just like to do more work I guess. Shannon and I think this is going to end in a "I told you so".




Gabe has also started to puff up again just slightly. You can really see it around his. head and ears. Hopefully we don't start to go backwards again. Every time I start to see swelling I get a little pit in my stomach just thinking of what has happened in the past, but we are not going there. I will update you more tomorrow when we find out how things turn out. Here are a couple pics and video of him over the past couple days. Thank you for all of your prayers.

1 comment:

Robin O said...

I can only imagine how exhausted you are, and I know I've been pretty tired in my life.. so many thanks for keeping this going for us bystanders.

Maintaining our vigil, be strong.
You are your son's best advocate.

Love and prayers,
R and D