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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Micah's Surgeries Day 6

Day 6-
This day has NOT ended on a good note but up until this evening I had nothing but good to report! After a nice quiet morning of Micah resting and watching a movie, they moved us from the IMCU to the 9th floor! In fact, we are in the exact same room, just 3 floors up, so after I hung up Micah's happies she received from folks, it looked just like "home" haha. We got settled in and she rested some more. 
Toughest kid I know... 
Physical Therapy came in and not only got Micah to sit up, but after MUCH protesting from Micah, she actually got her to dangle her feet off the side of the bed and sit up for what seemed like forever! Micah did not like this at all and complained the entire time of pain and nausea and dizziness. I can't imagine how it must have felt to sit up for the first time since Friday early morning. I'm sure if she had actually eaten anything since last Thursday night, she maybe would have even thrown up. Poor kid! But she did as she was told and they said the first time sitting up is ALWAYS the hardest. So the worst is hopefully over as far as that goes! More of sitting up tomorrow!
Later this afternoon, Tina brought Micah's buddies Tanner and JT who came bearing not only great gifts, but my favorite: PF Chang's. Mmm... We had a good visit! Our super awesome electric guitarist at GCC, Paul also stopped by while he was here for a meeting and he is always good company as well. I was actually glad we had a low visitor count today. It was a rough day physically for Micah and it was nice to have a few quiet times today. Not that we don't love visitors! We do! Thanks to everyone who has texted, facebooked, called and visited, its been wonderful to feel so loved!
Micah got a PCA pain pump today where she gets to monitor her own pain. You can see the black button thing in the picture above. It has a constant drip of morphine and then every 10 minutes she is able to get another little "hit" if she needs it. It can't give her too much but it lets the nurses know how she is doing pain-wise, based on the number of times and the frequency in which she presses her button. I think she's been pressing it a LOT. 
This evening after Gary came with dinner (yum!) we started having IV trouble. They'd already pulled 1 of the really big IVs they gave her in surgery yesterday and then after the right arm (AGAIN!) infiltrated causing her elbow to get gigantic, we were down to one IV. And then, it too was gone. I made the call to step in as a parent at that point and put my foot down: no more TPN and lipids. The nutrients she was getting were good but the way almost every one of the TPN IV's was blowing after a while led me to believe it was NOT a good idea to give her any more. I've been doing my best ever since to keep giving her the clear liquid protein supplement so that she will at least have something. After both arms were unavailable, we started pushing for a PICC line but finally after the PICC nurse couldn't get an IV to stay strong (2 of the 3 she did was using an ultrasound and Micah's veins just kept blowing), the ER doctor came up and tried with an ultrasound and it almost immediately blew, the other doctor on call grabbed anesthesia coming out of the OR and asked them to come try. They were checking her feet for veins but he ended up finding a spot in her left arm and getting a good IV. It is now taped up, braced down and in an immobilizer as well just to keep it safe! They plugged her PCA back up and she is back in business with her button! WHEW!!!!! The fear was that the Valium and Zofran and Morphine in her system were going to eventually wear off leaving her in pain crisis in the middle of the night. Hopefully we are in the clear. He said this IV should last for several days...here's hoping!
We are continuing to log roll Micah so that her body doesn't lay in one spot too long, which she hates but she goes with it. 
Settling down for the night myself, tomorrow is a new day and will be better! "For this is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it!" Psalm 118.24

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Thinking of you guys from afar! So glad she has a strong Momma there to be with her through this. Love you guys.