The Bradleys: Day 2: Post-op

Ethan (and I) had a long and sleepless night. He was forced to wear the CPAP mask again because they wanted to give his lungs the best chance to come off CPAP for good by morning. He hated the mask and cried and fought all night long. He slept for about 3 hours total (not consecutively) and that was only after taking Ativan to calm his thrashing. He is just miserable, scared, totally uncomfortable, and in pain.

He did have a good morning though! We were allowed to remove the CPAP mask and he was so relieved about that! He also has been able to take one ounce of Gatorade about every hour throughout the day. Of course he wants a lot more, but that is all that is allowed. He had been fluid positive (taking in more fluid than peeing out) all day until late afternoon when he started to turn it around a bit. Hopefully we keep up that trend and get this fluid off! His Lasix (diuretic med to make him pee) was increased multiple times and it is definitely helping out!

He had a very eventful afternoon. We did a dressing change on his chest bandages and also pulled two of his three chest tubes! We are really hoping and praying that his final chest tube will be able to be removed tomorrow, because they really cause a lot of pain! He also wanted to get up so we had him sit in a chair next to his bed for about 20 minutes. He was so relieved to get out of bed, but once he was in the chair he realized he was very uncomfortable and wanted back in bed! He was super tough though and stuck it out for the 20 minutes...and then was able to get back into fresh clean bedding. :)

During the move to the chair he was very, very dizzy and it really wore him out. He also slipped back into JET heart rhythm and has pretty much stayed in it since with multiple PVCs. His heart rate went up to upper 170s, but once he was back in bed returned to 120s. The docs are not really concerned about the arrhythmias though because he is physically tolerating it so well. They believe the main cause for it is the swelling in his heart from surgery messing with the electrical conduits. They pretty much were not surprised that it happened and are expecting it to go back to normal sinus rhythm in the next couple of days as his heart heals.

He fought sleep all day long until dinnertime. He is sleeping (in and out) right now actually. Hopefully he will sleep through the night tonight because I definitely am running low on energy! And to top off multiple sleepless nights in a row, Starbucks ran out of soy milk today so I couldn't get my coffee! :'( Needless to say I was not pleased.

The plan that we discussed today is that tomorrow we will hopefully remove the final chest tube and Foley catheter. He is desperately wanting out of bed, so hopefully we will be able to tolerate a small walk or at least standing around in the room. His legs are driving him crazy from just lying in bed so long!

We definitely need prayers for sleeping at nighttime, good sinus heart rhythm, peace and calm, and good pain control. He is still struggling with the pain from coughing and being completely uncomfortable. Also he really wants to eat and drink, so he needs to be fluid negative and have good feeling stomach. He struggled with nausea, but it has been gradually improving throughout the day (and with the help of nausea meds). He keeps requesting to get out of bed. In fact he is crying right now to get out of bed, so we will try and have him sit up on the edge of the bed to see how he handles it. Please keep praying for his healing. We need his lungs to clear up and get this fluid off of him. Also please pray for his chest tube drainage to slow enough for it to be removed tomorrow.