Sorry for the cliffhanger!

I left you with Hunter's life threatening event and then ditch y'all for a week! But I think you all know that he's a big happy, healthy chubba 6 month old.....so it's ok! Moving on to the rest of his ICU stay....

The next day, Friday, after Hunter's surgery and cardiac arrest, things were continuing to look stable.  They hadn't had to increase any of his drugs or medicine (except some of the sedatives when he would try to wake up).  They were leaving everything as it was to let his body adjust to it's new physiology.  It was all just watching and waiting.

Throughout the weekend he continued to look even better.  The ICU attending doctor was pleased with how things looked but she wouldn't commit to saying he was doing "well" because in her words "I frankly don't trust him at all".  Understood...neither did I.

 

During the weekend

Talk about freaky....seeing your baby awake with his chest wide open! 

It was so good to see his eyes, even tho they didn't let him be awake any more than a minute or two.

On Saturday afternoon, everyone agreed that he was ready to start thinking about closing his chest.  Because, like I said, no one trusted him, they wanted to wait until Monday morning when they had the full surgical team there and a full staff "just in case".  So on Sunday, Steve and I actually had a "relaxing" day.  We hung out with one of our favorite nurses, Amy, took a walk to a great little English pub and had yummy fish and chips. When we came back, Amy said to us "I was going to call you, but didn't want to freak you out...." My heart was POUNDING.... Turns out Hunter was now in "isolation" for 24 hours meaning anyone other than us coming into his room had to wear a paper gown and gloves, because it seemed he had impetigo on his ear.  Of course buddy, if anyone can get a honey crusted skin infection in the hospital, it's YOU! They applied ointment for a few days and it cleared up.  So bizarre.

Monday morning came and it was time to close his chest.  There was a bit of chaos that morning figuring out the time.  At first they said the afternoon, then they gave us the option of the morning, which we didn't take because Steve was at the RMH trying to work that morning.  Then the surgical fellow called me while I was downstairs at Starbucks (yes in the hospital..... thank GOD!) and said that because of scheduling they needed to do it right then.  I ran upstairs and barely had enough time to kiss my guy before the team got there.  Steve wasn't able to give him a kiss before, but he did make it to the family lounge right when I did to help me not freak out.

The process of closing the chest is a surgery.  It is done bedside in a sterile environment.  The nurse is there in charge of his sedatives, an ICU fellow is there calling the shots, the respiratory technician is there controlling the ventilator, and the surgical fellow is there doing the closure.Plus because of how well everyone  knew Hunter at that point, lots of extras were there, just in case. The procedure itself of wiring the sternum closed and stitching the skin takes about 20 minutes.  We were back in there with Hunter about 50 minutes after I left.

They expect a dip in status after the closure as the body has to adjust to the new pressure in the chest but Hunter had no dip.  At around 4 that afternoon, his nurse and I were standing over him and we both watched this mysterious rash start from below his chin and move its way down his whole body to his feet.  Of course, I was freaking out.  She called the fellow to come take a look.  He had a lot of "hmmmmmms" and decided to just watch and see.  Awesome.

That night, after an hour or so of Hunter's heart rate being quite a bit more rapid, they found that he had a fever.  They took blood and lung secretion cultures and sent them to the lab.  It takes at least 24 hours to get results back.  Again, I was freaking out and asking a lot of questions.  A fever and possible infection is never a  good thing.  In the end, that ended up being nothing.  Hunter's rash and fever were both just "him" and keeping everyone on their toes.

Tuesday, 1 day post closure, was a quiet day as well.  We continued to slowly wean him off of his heart meds.  He was able to rid of his pacing wires (just in case they needed to pace his heart) and his chest drainage tubes.  He was starting to look more like himself.  They also began "waking up" his tummy by giving very small amounts of breastmilk through the NG tube down his nose.  He continued to do well.

Closed Chest!!!

Wednesday, Steve had to go home to Arizona.  He had a big deposition on Thursday, but would be returning on Saturday morning with Corben and my mom to spend the weekend with me.  Hunter continued to do so well.  They had weaned his ventilator settings down quite a bit and began pressure support sprints where basically he was doing the work on his own.  He would start breathing very fast by the end of the sprints. So he didn't fail, but he also didn't pass with flying colors either.  They also felt he was stable enough to be sent for his MRI and didn't want to push him too hard and extubate him as he would need to be sedated for the MRI anyway.  They didn't want someone freshly off the vent to then be heavily sedated.  So they gave him another day.  The MRI itself went great.  They were gone with him a LONG time.  I was expecting about 2 hours and they had him for over 3.  I was starting to get panicky when they rolled him back in.

His entourage during his trek to MRI.  

 That night I was able to get a goodnight's sleep.  Actually, pretty much every night other than his first night after surgery I slept great.  He was sedated so there were no cares I could have done for him, I couldn't hold him, and he didn't make any noise! I averaged about 7-8 hours a night! Amazing!

The next day, was probably one of the best days of my life........