Day 3

The best way I can think of to describe today is eventful. 

12:30   Jace woke up startled and moving around.  It didn't take too long to calm him back down.  He slept soundly until about 4:00 so I was able to get about 3 hours of sleep too. 

4:30     He woke up again crying and trying to get up.  As he was settling back down, they came to do a chest x-ray.  They do these so early so the results will be available for the doctors when they make their morning rounds.

6:00      The nurse needed to draw blood from his IV for some tests the doctors had requested.  Much to my fear, his line would not draw.  Since all his other lines had been removed, this meant that they would have to stick his arm.  Jace has always had trouble having blood drawn.  His veins are so hard for them to find that he usually has to be stuck more than once.  On a couple of occasions, they have had to draw from a vein in his head and he looks so pitiful when they do that.  Luckily, the lady we had was wonderful.  She spent lots of time making sure she could find the vein before she stuck him.  When she stuck him his vein rolled on her.  She was able to keep moving the needle until she found it so he was only stuck once.  He cried, but he did so much better than I had expected him to do. 

8:00     Jamie and Taylor arrived and Jace was so glad to see them.  They wanted to get Jace back on the same feeding schedule he has at home.  They decided to try a bolus feed and give him 85 mls (almost 3 ounces) over an hour period.  This is half the amount he gets in a normal feeding.  Before they could get one ounce in him, he began gagging and wretching.  He did not tolerate it well at all so they just stopped the feed and decided to try again at 12:00. 

8:00 - 10:00    This was a pretty rough couple of hours for him.  He would be settled and then all the sudden start crying and rolling around in the bed.  He even managed to stand up somehow a couple of times.  They gave him some morphine and he finally settled down and went to sleep.

10:30    During rounds, they discussed that Jace had not had a bowel movement since before surgery.  I think most of the pain he was having was from gas.  They asked the nurse to give him a suppository and then added Colace to his medicine list.  When the nurse got ready to give him the suppository I told him that I was going to change his diaper.  Jamie spoke up and said that he had just changed his diaper.  I shook my head at him and told Jace that we were going to check to see if it needed changing again.  While I had him distracted, the nurse was able to give him the suppository.  The nurse told Jace that he didn't need changing after all.  Jamie leaned over his bed and whispered to Jace that we had lied to him.  The nurse and I both laughed.

11:00    They told us yesterday that Jace was ready to go to a regular room as soon as one was available on the sixth floor.  6c is the floor where the cardiac patients go to after surgery.  Sadly, we know this floor all too well, but we love the nurses and wonderful care Jace gets there.  Our nurse told us that she just got word that Jace's room was ready and he would be moving up soon.  This was so exciting for us because it means we are just that much closer to going home.

On the elevator going up to the 6th floor.

The board in Jace's room.  Tara, one of the receptionists, made friends with Taylor during our stays.  She is from Alabama and would tease Taylor and try to get her to root for Alabama.  That is where the roll tide comment comes from.  We knew who had written it as soon as we saw that.

12:00   We arrived at 6c.  Jace was greeted and we were hugged by several nurses who remembered us from our previous stays.  When we got to him room I don't know what happened.  I don't know if it was pain or he was scared because there were so many nurses in his room.  He began to cry, kick, roll around, and literally stood up in the middle of the bed.  The nurse couldn't believe he was moving around that much so soon after surgery.  It took Jamie and I both to get him settled back down.  Once he was calm, they were able to get his vitals.  They needed to change his bed so that meant some snuggling time with Mommy.  By 12:45 they were ready to try another feed.  Again he did not tolerate it well so we had several spells of gagging and wretching.  This wore him out so much that he took a nap.

1:30 Since he was sleeping, the nurse decided it would be a good time to split his drain tubes.  He has two chest tubes but they both led into one big drain tube.  They said if they split them into two tubes then they would be able to tell which tube was draining more.  When they finished, Jace slept for about another hour.  When he started having more pain, the nurse said we should try and vent him.  He has an extension on his feeding tube to connect the milk bag to his feeding tube.  To vent him, we take a large syringe and hook it to the extension.  This allows any air in his stomach to escape.  We spent a lot of the afternoon doing this.  Whenever we would see that he was getting restless, we would vent him and it seemed to really help with the pain. 

One of many venting episodes during the day.

4:00  Jace hadn't drank much today so we tried getting  him to drink something.  We tried several different things.  Of all the things, he wanted Ski.  He drank about an ounce of it and it didn't take long to kick in.  We were able to vent him again and get lots of gas off then.  I hope that wasn't enough Ski for him to acquire the taste for it because he is active enough without it.  I can't imagine how he would be if he drank very much of it.  He was then able to settle down again and rest for awhile.  The nurse said the doctor wants to wean him from the oxycodone except when needed and get him tordal on schedule to help with the constipation.

Taylor climbed into bed with Jace to help settle him down and watch Scooby Doo with him.  She is such a great big sister!

5:30  Jace's surgeon, Dr. Bichell, stopped by to check on him.  He thought he was doing great.  He actually thought that it had been 3 or 4 days post op for him instead of just two.  That didn't surprise me that he would be confused on the number of days considering that I had seen him pass by Jace's room lastnight at 10:30 in his surgery attire.  He said in that case then Jace was ahead of schedule so far for recovery.   He told us that Jace had done so well through all of his surgeries that he should be their poster child.  I know the reason he has done so well is because of all the many prayers that have been said for him.

6:30   The nurse came in to give Jace some medicine through his IV.  When she started with the saline flush, she realized that his IV was no longer working and that it would have to be replaced.  So once again today he would have to be stuck and hopefully find a vein.  She warned us before she started that she always got shaky when she did this, but she could usually get it in.  Since she was the charge nurse (the one over the floor for the day), I felt more comfortable with her trying.  Sure enough she was right.  She found the vein, but by the way she was shaking you would have thought it was her first time doing it.  I was sure glad she told us ahead of time or I probably couldn't have stood it. Jamie and I couldn't help but laugh at her.  She said she had always been that way.  I told her it made me nervous just watching her shake.  Luckily, it turned out great and the IV is working just fine.

7:30    So I mentioned earlier that today has been an eventful day.  Other than getting to move up to 6c, the biggest event for us was that Jace finally pooped!!  Yes, we laughed too just like I'm sure you are laughing now at reading that.  I guess that is just part of parenting when you get excited over something like poop because you know it is going to make your child feel better.  After the day Jace has had with pain, it was a welcomed sight!  After that, he has been able to sleep and get some much needed rest.  It is almost 11:00 now and he has only had one other pain spell and that also resulted in more poop.  Hopefully he will be able to sleep for the rest of the night.

On a final note.....Our room is close to the helicopter landing pad so you can hear each time one lands.  As I have typed this I have heard one fly in about three different times.  That sound still sends chills up my back.  That sound means that there are families somewhere whose lives have been turned upside down just like ours was two short years ago.  So as I say my prayers tonight I will pray for those families and also thank God for how far Jace has come since his flight here.  What started out as little hope for his future from some doctors has now become great hopes and expectations of what God has in store for him!!