Post-Op

Andrew and I slept in this morning And arrived to some good news.  They have removed her catheter and neck iv. They're talking about taking out two chest tubes later due to little to no output (2 ml's from the right, none from the left.) There's even been some talk of heading upstairs tomorrow. That'll depend entirely the milrinone (heart medication) and if they can get it turned off tonight or tomorrow morning. Livie's oxygen need has gone down from 2liters yesterday to .5 as of right now. The morphine is making
Livie pretty itchy and swollen so she's been rubbing her eyes. While that makes her mad, I'm glad to see her moving around. They are working on weening her off the morphine and getting her on some oxycodone. They've also started feeds. Yay! No more tylenol suppositories! They had to give her tylenol that way until her gut was awake enough to handle feeds and the tylenol.  So far she's handling both just great.
 Livie's a little more awake and a little happier. Still grumpy but she will actually look around a little before getting mad. She's starting to take her binky again but it's still pretty hit and miss. Her mouth is just so dry and her throat is sore, I'd imagine. If we dip her bink in some pedialyte first she'll take it. She still sleeps a lot but not as much since they've turned off her sedative. For now, we're encouraging her to sleep. We've got our music going and it smells like rain a little more than it does like the cicu. And for those readers who've never been in the ICU, it's a very distinct and horrible smell. OK, it's not a gross smell. Just very sterile and plasticy with a hint of bad memory. So, yucky. But, like I said, the rain smell is making it's way in and is glorious.
Oh and on a happy side-note.  Remember a while back when I talked about nurse Bryan and how much Olivia and I loved him?  Well, as shift change was approaching last night, in walks Bryan to the cicu.  He recognized us and came over to say hi.  I was a little bummed thinking he was just coming over to say hi but low and behold, he was coming over to drop off his stuff too because he was our nurse!  So, last night was much easier leaving Liv than I thought.  I knew she was in good hands and will be tonight as well.  Hooray for happy "coincidences" aka blessings.  I didn't even request him and now I don't even have to.

And happy day! Uncle Evan was actually able to not be at work for a short while and come see Miss Liv.  As you can see, Liv is waking up but still pretty out of it and swollen.  Oh, and they've got her sitting up to help with the headaches.  Because of the new blood flow the blood pressure in her head is about 3x's what it used to be.  Once her body adjusts she'll be much happier.  Although, Andrew did get a smile out of her earlier.