It was an eventfully day here at MUSC. I wrote a few emails today to those who subscribe to the email updates for Caden’s Page. I was unable to post directly to the blog for a while. Below is the majority of what I wrote today. Scroll to the bottom of this post for the latest new of the night.
Email sent at 2:24pm – Slow Progress
“Things are moving very slow. The surgery staff is very busy today. Caden was not taken back to the OR until 12:45. The surgery is expected to take up to 4 hours. I will post an update after the surgery is complete.
One of the doctors just came out to tell us that things are going good. The botox is complete and they are working on the sphincterplasty now.”
Email sent at 4:51pm – In Recovery
“We are with Caden in recovery. He came out of sugery at about 3:30. He is doing okay and sleeping right now with the help of some mophine.
He woke up for a little while and started coughing which caused him to bleed. This was scary. The nurse thought Sherry was going to pass out. I thought I was too. They called for the doctor while I used the suction to help clear the blood from Caden’s mouth. The doctor came to look Caden over and said everything was going to be okay. It was likely a small vessel that burst. Once it was over the amount of blood in the suction canister was less than what it looked like coming out of Caden’s mouth.
We are in a very sticky spot with the suctioning. We have to be very careful not to damage the work that was done today. At the same time Caden has to be able to breathe. The work done today is not expected to help swallowing for a couple weeks so the need for suctioning secretions will likely continue at least until then.
We will be transferred to a regular room soon. The doctor wants keep an eye on Caden a little while longer here in recovery. There is still a little bit of bleeding.
Your prayers are felt. Please continue to lift Caden up in your prayers.”
Email sent at 8:00pm – In a room
“We are settled into a room. We are in 834 of the Children’s Hospital. Caden is sleeping good. He woke up a played for a few minutes with one of his musical toys.
He is still on IV fluids and a little bit of blow by oxygen. The oxygen will probably go away soon since Caden’s O2 saturation is finally hanging in the low 90’s when he is off of it for trial periods. The IV will be shut down later tonight once we get through a full tube feed. We started doing the tube feed at 7pm.
The plan is for Caden to be discharged tomorrow morning. I will stay home Friday even if we do go home tomorrow just to help out with Caden. I expect him to be pretty clingy for a couple of days.
Please add the Patterson family to your prayer list. They have a one week old little girl who had heart surgery today. The dad served in the middle east with one of my sister’s friends. The little girl was flown to MUSC from Columbia shortly after birth this past week. I tried to locate the family earlier this evening to offer them prayer and encouragement to have hope in the Lord. They were not in the waiting area and must have been in the ICU with their little girl.
Thank you for your continued prayers for our family.”
6/28/2007 00:30 – Sleeping sound
Things ahve settled down, but not without a little more excitement. Caden went to sleep at about 8:00pm and slept sound until about 11:45pm. The nurse came in with a dose of pain medicine because I told them I wanted him to get the doses tonight as he was allowed. I did not want to wait until he cried from pain. They agreed so she was bringing the medicine as we had discussed. We turned on enough light so we could hook up his g-tube to the button. When the light came on we found blood on most of his bedding and his face. I was nowhere nearly as alarmed at the sight of blood this time. This is mainly because I noticed how well he was breathing before the light came on. His O2 saturations were hanging in the high 90’s and his heart rate was clipping along at about 120. I could tell from the sound of his breathing that he was not labored and his respirations were about probably around 40. This is all normal for him. The blood was mostly clumped up in the front of his mouth. He had probably coughed it up and some had got smeared on his face and blankets. The nurse was not too alarmed either, but did call the doctor to come in and take a look. He basically asked me what I thought based on what happened earlier in the day. Basically he was not concerned and wanted to make sure that I was not concerned before he left.
Within minutes after the doctor’s departure Caden was sound asleep. I sat on the couch and held him for about ten minutes until he fell asleep. I don’t see anything that will keep us in here past the morning at this point.
The rest of the gang
Sherry went and picked up Riley earlier this evening. They came back to bring me some food, a change of clothes, and a laptop. Walla, I get to post to the blog again. Riley had a fun day hanging with the Gollatz family. They ended the day at some kind family fun event at Crossroads Church in Summerville with a slip and slide thing coated with dish soap. Whatever it was it must have wore Riley out because he fell asleep on the way home. Sherry was able to get him coherent enough to walk up the stairs to his room.
Praise Report
I have only had to run on the suction hose twice tonight. Both times I only ahd to use it to clear the blood out from the front of Caden’s mouth. He has had almost no congestion and what little he has experienced has been pretty easy for him to cough up.
I’m going to catch some sleep while I have a break between the battles with the nurse assistant wanting to wake Caden up to take vital signs.
I will leave you with a rehash of what my friend CJ said today yesterday, “God is all over this. No worries.” Amen brother!