Yesterday I came back up to the hospital. I got here around 11:30 AM and things were going well. Jack was doing well. He was tolerating the breast milk well, and his drainage wasn't too high, and he was just doing well. He was a little tired, which is fine, no one was super worried about that. The only thing that had really happened was that his sodium levels have been low. So, even know, he's on basically salt water to help those levels go back up.
It seems like I had a lot of random people coming in yesterday and talking to me about various things. There was a blood guy that came in and talked to me about tests Jack will have to have done in like 3 months (this is due to a blood disorder that Dale has, and they need to test Jack, but since Jack got a transfusion, they can't tell if he has the same blood disorder until his blood cells all come back to be his own, if that makes sense. I guess the red blood cells cycle through every 90 days, so in 90 days from the transfusion he'll only have his own blood, man, I hope that makes sense), but he was middle eastern, and very hard for me to understand, and I was holding Jack, and the nurse was in the other room that connects to ours and they were all talking, so all the extra noise and having to concentrate on Jack (I had to actually hold him a certain way, b/c of the fluid drain in his head. If I didn't keep him level with his little meter thing, then he would be in a LOT of pain ... so yeah). He just came at a bad time. Not his fault, but yeah. Then the pathology people came in because they needed to do some evalution to make sure that Jack wouldn't need them after he was done here. That doctor was deaf, which was actually really amazing to watch. She can speak pretty well, but I had to really concentrate on what she was saying. Jack also had two male nurses yesterday, his day and night nurse were male. I honestly don't think I've seen any more than one male nurse the entire time we've been here, so it was crazy that he had 2 in 24 hours. They were both so great though. All but one of his nurses has been AMAZING! The one was fine, she was just weird ... lol.
So, the NP for the Neurosurgeons came in to check on Jack. She said his drainage was really good, and that his soft spot felt really good also (which is good, I guess when he first got here it was pretty hard b/c of the fluid build up). She said she didn't see why they couldn't move him out of PICU, but that the Neurosurgeon had to come in and determine it for sure, and he had just gone into long surgery. I figured it'd be the evening before he made it in (it was like 2 o'clock when this was happening). It was, lol. He looked at Jack though and was pleased. He wanted a CT Scan done in the morning and then they'd look at that and the drainage and see how things looked. If they were good, he seemed confident that they'd be moving him.
At some point during the afternoon they also took Jack in for a swallow test to see if he could handle the mouth feedings instead of the tube. He did all right. He can have thicker liquids. With the thinner ones it's going into his lungs a little bit. So in a few weeks they'll test again to see how he does and if he can have the thinner fluids. So, what this means, right now the doctor is keeping him on the feeding tube, BUT for comfort she wants to give him a bottle with breast milk that has a thickener in it. I'm not sure if they've tried that yet, or when they will. But it's good that he'll be able to start taking some food by mouth for sure and getting those muscles working again, and hopefully get him nursing again.
Big accomplishments for Jack this day: He was SO awake! He was awake for over 1 hour, and not crying really. He wanted the binky badly, and enjoyed sucking on it. He really was sucking like he wanted to nurse. So that was good. I got to hold him! I'm hoping tonight or tomorrow when Dale is here he might be able to hold him too. We'll have to see though. He was pretty fussy last night, but he's been through a lot. He's not on the morphine any more, and they've just been giving him Tylenol. I don't even think he's had any since like midnight. I also haven't asked the nurse to know for sure though, lol. He seems to be doing well though.
Holding my baby!!!
He's so cute.
Stitches and drain tube.
Jack being awake. I couldn't use a flash or else his eyes would close, lol.
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