Saturday, June 16, 2007

Surgery went well

It will be a few days to a week before we know if it was truly successful, but Gabriel came through it fine and tolerated it well, according to his doctors. The drainage from the left chest tube was less over night, but we were cautioned that it is still too early to know if it worked. His blood gas results remain good and they resumed weaning a little bit over night. Last night I sat with him for a while and he got the hiccups. Normally he would be in obvious pain, but he seemed to be only mildly annoyed last night. When Josh went back up, apparently there was some "bubbling" around the chest tubes, but Dr. Duffy was able to fix it. When I talked to the nurse early this morning, there had been no more problems. Gabriel had a little extra pain medicine over night, but not nearly as much as the nurses thought he might need, especially after having his lungs scraped. I guess he is developing a higher pain tolerance ;)

This morning I asked Dr. Rouse about the right chest tube and if he thought Gabe might have to have the pleuradesis on the right too, and the answer is yes, it is still possible. We kind of figured as much. It has never put out as much fluid as the left and hasn't worsened, but hasn't really improved in the past few days either. He has a little bit of collapsing in the upper right lung, which we knew about and they have been watching (not sure if we have mentioned that one before). He also mentioned that if the left does clear up as they hope it will, it is possible the fluid will "move over" to the right and it could get worse. Guess what I am going to say next...........that's right! " we'll just have to wait and see"!

2 comments:

Gail and Dave Wittmer said...

Dear Peg and Josh,
Isn't it amazing what we can deal with when we are faced with such uncertainies? You might say, you have no choice, but, not too many parents would be as brave and as commited as you. You two are the "miracle" as much as Gabe. Again, I say, he is richly blessed to have you, as are, Justin and Kendrick.
Love, to all, Aunt Gail

Dave and Maria Schoeppner said...

Glad to hear the surgery went well. I have been anxiously checking the web page for an update. Thanks for keeping us all informed. We are keeping you in our prayers.
Love,
Maria, Dave, Patrick, and Cathryn