We are now at 18 days in the ICU, can you believe it? Judah is approaching his 3 week birthday on Monday.
Last night and today continued yesterday’s trend of excellent heart rates, smooth and easy breathing, and a happy, awake, and aware Judahbear. Last night he and Daddy got to sleep through the entire night with minimal wakeups. Judah still cries a little when the nurses change his diaper or when they draw blood, but he quickly falls right back to sleep. as of 10pm last night, Judah is no longer on any of the heaviest narcotic sedatives, as of noon he has gone 24 hours without the breathing tube, and as of about 3pm this afternoon, he is no longer on any sedatives at all.
He was awake and active just about all day long, and for the first time since before his surgery 10 days ago, both mommy and daddy got to hold their little boy again. It was absolutely wonderful. Although he is still hooked up to a number of IVs, as long as we didn’t move him too far away we were able to hold him and read to him, talk to him, and makes faces back at him. Now that he is no longer on the heaviest of drugs, he is practicing all of his faces again, and focusing in on nearby toys, people, and the mobile the nurses put back up for him. He truly is looking like himself again.
Tonight, as the doctors made their final nightly rounds, they even decided to step down on several of his IV medications and see how he does. That is really going to be the story for the next couple of days, slowly lowering his medicines and then waiting to see how he reacts. We hope he continues to react well to the lower doses of medicines, and with any luck in a few more days we will be able to feed him again, get some of the IVs stopped and removed completely, and make our way to the 8th floor, the cardiology recovery wing, instead of the Cardiology intensive care unit where we’ve spent 18 of Judah’s 19 days on this planet. Tonight will be another campout with daddy, and for both of their sake we hope they can rest well.
As always, please continue to keep us in your thoughts and hearts, and we hope to be able to continue bringing good news and updates with more progress.
J-N-J