After such a crazy day yesterday, last night we went home to try to calm ourselves and rest. Seeing Judah last night was both reassuring and frightening, as at this point we have enough hospital experience to know what we are seeing and people are telling us, but without always fully understanding every detail. We decided last night to leave Judah’s care to the professionals, and to know that he is in the best place possible. Everyone kept telling us how good he looked for being minutes out of surgery, and last night we agreed.
When we would call in to the hospital for updates, the nurse would tell us how stable he was being and how well he was doing, and when we finally got to see Judah again today, we got to experience it for ourselves. Our little Judah made it through the first night and the first 24 hours after surgery exceptionally well. He rested comfortably, responded appropriately to stimulus, and his vitals and numbers have never looked better. Judah remains sedated today, and probably into tomorrow and possibly thursday as well.
The amazing nursing and doctoral staff were able to cut back the majority of the medications and heavy sedatives he is on, and we received some incredible news – that for the first time since his first open heart surgery back in September, Judah is not on any anti-arrhythmic heart medications. Although there will be a lot of playing with the settings on his pacemaker, and much more monitoring to go, getting him off these heart meds is an incredible step. While he needed them up until this point to maintain and correct his heart rhythm and rate, these medications have short and long term side effects that we are very happy to not be as concerned with anymore. The respiratory therapists have been monitoring his breathing and ventilation very closely, and he is already almost back to the breathing settings on his ventilator that he was before surgery, meaning he is fully breathing on his own with almost no assistance. Now that this repair is complete, the respiratory therapists are eager to lower his vent settings even more and allow Judah to really move forward on his own.
The first night and day in Judah’s recovery have gone smoothly. The CICU staff will continue to watch him very closely and let him rest. They will give him pain medication as he needs it to make sure that he is comfortable. Tomorrow the doctors plan to continue weaning him off more medications, and removing a few IVs, and hopefully even starting him on breastmilk again. As he wakes up more and more, mommy and daddy will be by his side, talking to him, reading to him, and getting ready to snuggle and cuddle with him again.
Our continued love and thanks for all of your support and prayers,
J-N-J
What good news! Thanks for the update. I will continue to pray.