Greetings all. We had some very exciting weather here last night, but in the room not too much was going on. As you know the plan was to have Thaddeus just take it easy for a day and give him a chance to settle in to his new body, and let his vocal chord swelling go down so that we can get the breathing tube out hopefully today. The only problem with that is that it apparently was not Thaddeus' plan. Let me just pause here to say everything is fine and no real problems occurred. I know, that is not how we build suspense, but suspense is not what we are here for is it? Anyhow, Thaddeus is a wiggler. He likes to move around. He likes to pull on and out any tubes or lines attached to him. This is why they felt the need to sedate him. The thing is, the sedation didn't really do the job that well. He was still moving and shaking so much that they went to a more potent sedative called fentanol. That helped to mellow him out. Well it mellowed him out enough to so that I took a nap and the nurse stepped into the hallway. That is when Thaddeus made his move. He made a grab for his breathing tube and sure looked like he was going to try and get it out all by himself. The nurse saw him and stopped him in time. As a result of that little stunt, Thaddeus now has "restraints" on. They let him move his arms around, but just not enough to get his arms up to his face. They also increased his sedative to the maximum level they can without completely knocking him out and stopping any independent breathing. Despite this, he continues to wiggle around to the point where they left the restraints on. Personally I love it. I love seeing how strong he is and seeing that despite sedation, his regular personality is still coming though. I apologize to all the nurses out there, because Thaddeus is keeping them hoping, but it makes me feel better to see him as feisty even through the sedatives.
So today they were able to take out all of the chest tubes and the heart line. After they pulled out the chest tubes his lungs looked much better on x-rays than they had before they pulled out the tubes. They are weaning him totally off of his blood pressure medication. They are also working on taking him off of the fentanol (the sedative the works better but impairs breathing) so that the breathing tube can come out and give him the best chance to breath on his own. They are going to put him back on the other sedative to try and help keep him calm when they take out the tube so that he doesn't injure himself with too much movement when they are taking it out. They are also dialing down the breathing machine to make him do more and more on his own even though the tube is in. Since there may be some swelling yet, they also have heliox on standby. This sounds very interesting to me. What they do is to mix oxygen and helium together. This lightens the oxygen and makes it less dense. This will allow it to move around in the body more easily than plain oxygen, yet it still contains enough oxygen to do the job. So, if he is having some troubles when the tube first comes out, this will make it easier for him to get the air passed that vocal chord. His diuretic is on a very low dose as well.
So while the breathing tube going back in is a set back, it is not directly related to the heart and the surgery. That seems to look good yet. The pressure in the new blood pathway is still not quite where they want it to be, but it is not an alarming level either. The body is still adjusting so while they are watching the numbers closely for any problems, the more important thing will be how his numbers are in a few days.
On a different note, we were given tickets to the Brewers' game tonight so at least some of us will (it depends on how Thaddeus is doing at that point) get to go.
I'll try to let you know later if they get the breathing tube out or not.
So today they were able to take out all of the chest tubes and the heart line. After they pulled out the chest tubes his lungs looked much better on x-rays than they had before they pulled out the tubes. They are weaning him totally off of his blood pressure medication. They are also working on taking him off of the fentanol (the sedative the works better but impairs breathing) so that the breathing tube can come out and give him the best chance to breath on his own. They are going to put him back on the other sedative to try and help keep him calm when they take out the tube so that he doesn't injure himself with too much movement when they are taking it out. They are also dialing down the breathing machine to make him do more and more on his own even though the tube is in. Since there may be some swelling yet, they also have heliox on standby. This sounds very interesting to me. What they do is to mix oxygen and helium together. This lightens the oxygen and makes it less dense. This will allow it to move around in the body more easily than plain oxygen, yet it still contains enough oxygen to do the job. So, if he is having some troubles when the tube first comes out, this will make it easier for him to get the air passed that vocal chord. His diuretic is on a very low dose as well.
So while the breathing tube going back in is a set back, it is not directly related to the heart and the surgery. That seems to look good yet. The pressure in the new blood pathway is still not quite where they want it to be, but it is not an alarming level either. The body is still adjusting so while they are watching the numbers closely for any problems, the more important thing will be how his numbers are in a few days.
On a different note, we were given tickets to the Brewers' game tonight so at least some of us will (it depends on how Thaddeus is doing at that point) get to go.
I'll try to let you know later if they get the breathing tube out or not.
33 B:
Well, the joke is on me this time. They have weaned Thaddeus off of the heavy sedative and have him on a low dose of the other sedative so that he will wake up and we can take the breathing tube out. After some initial wiggling, he is now sleeping peacefully and not moving at all. Now that we want him to wake up and look around and wiggle, he is sleeping peacefully like we wanted him to yesterday. I have heard that my grandfather responded in the opposite fashion when he was sedated, so I don't know if there is something in the family or if this is just payback for the nurses for me laughing last night.
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