After leaving the hospital late Friday night I was very saddened that little Audrey had not yet been able to breathe on her own and get the ventilator off. Amanda woke up around 6am today and called back and spoke with the nurse to see how she did in the overnight breathing test and she was still not quite ready. We dropped Avery and Ryan off and headed back this morning expecting to see her about the same but were ecstatic to walk in and be greeted by the sight of her without it. Audrey made some great strides today in her recovery from the surgery. She is now breathing completely on her own once again and also began to feed once again from a bottle. She was much more active, moving around once again and opening her eyes and looking around. Fully eating and keeping it all down is now priority #1. Once she gets the feedings going smoothly and consistently we'll be able to start transitioning to the oral medications that she needs. She'll be able to transition from the Lidocaine over to the Mexiletine and also begin taking the beta-blockers. Moving over to the oral medications will get the many IV's out of her also and we'll actually get to hold her in our arms.
Amanda spent the whole afternoon at Audrey's side and when I went back to get her I took both Avery and Ryan with me. This would be Ryan's first time seeing his new sister and Avery's second. We were avoiding it while she had the ventilator and all of the other post-surgery connections but since she was able to lose some of those it was definitely a good opportunity. They were both very gentle and were rubbing Audrey's head and touching her little feet. Both kids are handling it so well and really look forward to her coming home one day soon.
I guess I should have captioned the pics in the post yesterday somewhat but the last pic is of a dual-chamber pacemaker like the one implanted in Audrey. It gives you an idea of the size of it and the two leads then go to her atria and ventricle chambers.
- Mark
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