Day #1 - Night Shift

I'm just taking a bit of a break from the PICU for an hour or so. She was getting quite anxious before I left, still asking for water. At this point they are still hesitant to give her any. So they gave her some Adavan. This helps to calm her and make her less anxious. It has helped considerably. Which is why I felt like I could leave for a bit. The doctor couldn't tell if she was in pain or if she was scared/anxious/frustrated. So he said he would try Adavan first, and if that didn't help he would move to more morphine. So far it appears to have helped.

The reason for the lack of water is that her main chest tube is still not draining as much as they would like, so there is a possibility there could be a clot in the tube or somewhere in her heart. If its something that doesn't improve then she will likely have to go back into surgery and they will have to go back in to investigate what the problem is. Obviously not a very nice option. So because she may need to be sedated again, they have to limit her liquids.

And if you know Abbi (or any 2 year old for that matter!), you know when she doesn't get her way, she is none too impressed! She said she wanted water (for the hundredth time!). I said I had to ask the doctor. So she said in her loudest, raspy voice (the tube that was in her throat makes her voice raspy for a few days), "CAN I HAVE SOME WATER, PLEASE!" Poor girl, unfortunately manners aren't going to help her much in this scenario. So hopefully soon, as long as everything continues to look good, she will get small amounts of water.

She also got to watch Dora for a bit. That helped for a short while. Rob called it "Dora-phine." Who knew you could watch cartoons in the ICU?

As for tonight, I plan to stay for a while yet. I'm quite the night owl as is, and am up a few times in the night with Gabe. So really this isn't all that unusual for me. I will stay until I feel a bit more confident that she is settled (I mean at this point she is only 5 hours post-op). Then Ruth plans to come quite early in the morning (5:00-7:00am). I will go home, switch the car with Rob, and he will make sure to be here for rounds, which is normally from 8:00-10:00am.

Gabe is being quite the trooper so far. He spent the morning with Marilyn (well from 9:00-2:30pm). They got on great, and he intially put up quite a fuss about such an offensive thing as a bottle. But they finally came to an agreement and he chugged it back. So that's great news knowing that he is willing to take a bottle. It gives me the freedom to stay here if I need to. Definitely a hard dynamic with a little one, but so far he has be very easy going about the entire thing. That's my boy!

Anyway, better get back in there. I'm doing well. Still hard to see her struggling so much, but it is encouraging to hear that she is right on track for where she should be. And she's as quick as she has ever been. Her newest thing over the past few weeks has been "because." An example would be, "Abbi why are you so grumpy?" "Because, I'm so grumpy." Oh...

So she's already whipped out "because" a few times in there. I told Ruth she'll drive those nurses and doctors to submission sooner or later!