Orange Popsicle (Post-Op Day 1)

Last night, in my “bed” from across the room, I could NOT make myself close my eyes, even though I was super tired, because I just didn’t want to take my eyes off my baby girl.

Although both of us were awake/asleep on & off all night long, not getting great rest, all-in-all it was a good night, and she had no issues. She drank water and crunched on ice all night long, and finally got some apple juice in the middle of the night. She woke up ready for her requested pancakes, sausage & syrup! She only ate about 10 bites, but drank almost the entire carton of chocolate milk.

Her blood pressure was a little low first thing this morning, so they took her off of the sleepy/groggy medicine a little before 7:00, and so she started slowly waking up throughout the morning. And by mid-morning, she was much more alert!

As her little personality started coming back, she realized we didn’t have anything to play with! I reminded her that the child life specialist dropped off dinosaurs yesterday, and we could still play with them today. We got them all out of the box, and she specifically told me to take pictures of a few of them, and then she wanted to pile them up all around her tiny legs and just leave them sitting there for a while.

She also got an orange popsicle for a mid-morning snack, to help wash away the taste of some nasty medicine that she got really angry about. Although she did like the taste of the orange popsicle, all she really wanted to do was turn her tongue in a teeth and lips orange, so she kept asking me after every bite, “Is it orange yet, Mommy?”

The KidszMin team at our church sent this giant unicorn balloon and a tiny little sloth today, and Emerson immediately took to the little animal. At first, when she was snuggling it, she said “Oh, what a sleepy rat.” I corrected her and told her it was a sloth, but that yes he probably was sleepy.

She ordered cheeseburger and french fries, plus strawberries and chocolate ice cream for lunch today, and was absolutely chowing down on the burger and berries. Jeff and I switched places in the middle of lunch, and he said she ate half of the burger, and then enjoyed quite a bit of her chocolate ice cream.

This is just a glimpse of her little room as I was walking out, to get you an idea of where she’s staying. We apparently had a miscommunication at some point, thinking she would move from the CVICU to a “regular room” today, but they keep all cardiac pediatric patients in the CVICU the entire time, and just de-escalate the amount of care they receive prior to discharge. So she’ll stay in this room the entire time, since they don’t have a specific cardiac pediatric floor here.

While I was there this morning, they took out her foley catheter, and her chest drainage tube (which was actually pretty traumatic, but followed up with the good drugs to calm her down and take away the pain), as well as a few wires that were in with the drainage tube. After lunch, they took out both of the IVs in her wrists as well. She now has just two IVs left, one in her neck and one in her foot, which will most likely both remain until discharge, just in case. But she was very glad to get the two out of her arms today. One of them was an “art line,” which was directly in the artery, so she has to wear this big compression tape for at least 24 hours. She wasn’t thrilled about that (That’s what she’s pointing out in the photo below), but it is better than the IV at least!

after lunch, and the removal of the two IVs, she had a very busy afternoon. She did some work with a physical therapist and an occupational therapist, to get her back up and moving, and to show her how to not hurt herself while moving around. They also helped her walked on the hallway, and then gave her a little sponge bath in the bathroom. After that she was able to put on a clean pair of jammies, and she chose the brand new strawberry jammies that Grammy and Papa gave her yesterday.

She got to go for a little ride around the CVICU in this cute alligator wagon, and was apparently just the bell of the ball!

She chose chicken tenders and cheese noodles for dinner, and daddy said she ate really well. And of course she got some more chocolate ice cream, and even a sugar cookie for dessert!

After I had a super early dinner with my parents tonight, Jeff and I switched places so that he could go out and get a meal too. I got to spend another couple of hours with Emerson, before switching back out with Jeff again for him to take the overnight shift tonight. When I got to her room, she was just sitting there so sweetly watching her Kindle, quietly all by herself. Oh and you can see in the background they get well poster that her class made last week and was sent by way of her Papa!

After getting her fully catheter removed this morning around 11:00 a.m., she still hadn’t gone pee on her own all day. The nurse and I took her to the bathroom and tried to get her to go, but she said she wasn’t ready. (I’m hoping she doesn’t revert back to her ways of holding it for 8 to 10 hours, just because she’s too stubborn to go. We did tell the nurses about her recent potty training issues, and they said it she still has to go no matter what.)

She also got to open a couple more presents today, like this giant dinosaur and photo book of all her favorite people, from Grammy and Papa.

After Jeff got a chance to get some dinner and a little bit of down time on his own, we switched places yet again, for him to come back and stay with her overnight. She actually fell asleep with her headphones on watching Olaf on her Kindle, right before I left, so I was able to easily slip out. She was starting to get a little sad before that though, because she just really wanted to come home, so Jeff brought her another present to open. She got to open one from her Nana and Pop Pop, full of fun things like Frozen temporary tattoos, water drawing pad, and a small glittery dino.

They have been giving her lasix throughout the day, to keep her hydrated and to try to flush her system, and they’re going to do it again at 9:00 p.m. hopefully after that, she will finally be able to pee on her own, and we can avoid getting another catheter but back in. They will also give her a little bit more pain medicine, to hopefully keep her calm and have a good night’s rest. So pray that she pees, she sleeps well, and that Jeff sleeps at least a little bit while it’s his turn in the hospital tonight. And I could definitely use some good sleep myself tonight as well!

they’ve told us she’s doing extremely well, and most kids her age don’t perk up as much as she has until about 3 or 4 days post-op. She’s doing so well, she will most likely be discharged on Saturday. We’re trying not to get our hopes too high, so in case that doesn’t happen, we won’t be devastated, but it is at least something exciting to look forward to, that our stay might not be near as long as we thought it was going to be! Thank you for all your continued prayers up until now, and please continue praying with us!