Post Norwood Day 5

I'm sorry that I've kept everybody hanging.  Needless to say it's been a very busy week. I am happy to say that Dylan is doing really good!  His surgery took place last Tuesday, May 10th, 2011. We got to the NICU at 6am and sat with and held Dylan for awhile before they took him for surgery at 7am. It was a VERY long day. We got the page on our pager to return to the NICU waiting room at 1pm and that Dylan's surgery was finishing up and he should be back in the NICU in an hour.  My parents came down and sat with us in the waiting room waiting for Dr. Lamberti to come talk to us.  Dr. Lamberti said that he was "very happy" with Dylan's Pulmonary Arteries, and that his Aorta reconstruction " is fine", however, Dylan was having some excessive bleeding that might require them to go back in and do exploratory surgery if it doesn't stop on its own.  Luckily it stopped on its own! :)   After about 30 minutes, we were allowed back to see Dylan.  It was very hard to stomach seeing him like that......... especially since we had so long to see him and his personality and to hold him and love on him before surgery. Even though I know that this is another step towards being able to bring him home, it was still hard to do because seeing him intubated and having all of the tubes coming out of him again seemed like a step backwards.  Dylan has had some ups and downs, but nothing that he couldn't handle. Overall he's doing great and headed in the right direction.  I REALLY need to get better at this blogging because it's hard to remember everything that's happened in a week.  I think that I'm going to try and post every night before bed, no matter how tired I am, even if it's short. 

Even though they have had to keep Dylan sedated for most of the time, his little feisty personality still shows through, when they go to take his temperature, or they touch his legs to check his pulse, he squirms and fusses and gets angry. One of the biggest things that I was waiting for was to get him off of the vent. I hated seeing him intubated because he would try and cry and scream and nothing comes out....... it's the saddest thing ever. They took him off the vent today, and so far he's doing great!  He's still got two more chest tubes to get removed, but hopefully those will come out soon.  They disconnected his pacer wires since he has not had to use them, they are still connected to his heart, but those should come out soon also.  Now that he is off the vent, they are going to try and start feeding him a little bit to get his bowels moving again.  I can't wait for the other tubes to be removed and for when we can start holding him again............ thats all he want's.... he wants his wubbanubs, he wants to be swaddled... and he wants his mommy and daddy to hold him.  Once he can have all of that, I'm sure his recovery process will speed up :)  

It's late for me, and it's been a really long day/night... So i'll leave you with the promise to try and do a blog entry every night ( or every other night) ...... and with a picture of a newly extubated Dylan! <3