Slightly Restless night

We came in this morning and noticed his vent settings were a little higher than we left him last night. His nurse (Shannon again today) said that his CO2 levels were rising over night, so they increased the settings some to help him rest. His CO2 got up into the mid-60s (they prefer below 60) but his last level this morning was around 40, so it is improving. He also had some extra morphine over night and this morning, since he was pretty restless. I am sure I would be pretty restless too, after all he has been through. None of this is really considered to be any kind of setback, just normal post-op stuff! Occupational Therapy came by again today, but Shannon shooed them off. I don't think he would appreciate having his arms and legs moved all about right now. She told them to try again on Monday.



I did forget to mention a couple of things from yesterday (blame the lack of sleep, blame the hair color, whatever you want). When we talked to Dr. Rouse after surgery, he mentioned they were able to see the diaphragm with the scope (did I even mention that the pleuradesis is done laproscopic? Probably not) and there was "healing tissue" starting to grow around the patch already. Another random thought I forgot to mention - this week is Dr. Little's last week, so I took the picture we took of him with Gabriel and mounted on some scrapbook paper with the title "Thank You" over it. On the back I wrote him a note, trying miserably to express how much we have appreciated all he has done. Anyway, when we gave it to him (the nurses paged him, even though I told them NOT to) he told us that Gabriel was pretty amazing and would probably save other lives, besides his own. They doubted him in the beginning and doubted if treatment would be worth while, but chose to anyway. He said in the future everyone would be less likely to doubt and more willing to believe in the possibilities. I don't think I got his exact words right, but that is the gist of it. As I mentioned before, we have never questioned why this has happened, and statements like that are even more reassuring that it has not been for nothing. I hope and pray nobody else has to watch their child go through this, but obviously that is unrealistic and others will - maybe more people can experience the same success we have. In the note I wrote to Dr. Little, I mentioned that this has been both the worst and best experience of our lives - and he helped bring us through the worst to the best (and even better days are yet to come).