Last night was the first night all week that we were all able to get a little (not a lot) of sleep. Casey was more comfortable than she has been in a really long time. We are able to skip 1 treatment that results in about 6 hours that we don’t have to mess with Casey. It was nice. We still have to suction, change diapers, etc. but we don’t have to move her around and can let her sleep.
During Casey’s xrays and treatments this morning, she got really worked up, and we were thinking it was going to be a rough day, but she hung in there and got through it. Her xrays again look about the same, maybe a little better, but that’s two days in a row, and overall we think that she is breathing better. The rest of the day she did really good.
First, the doctors said Casey could have her nasal tube removed. It has been bugging her ever since she woke up from surgery with it in her nose. It also blocked the ability to deep suction and get her to give a really good cough. We are so much happier now that it’s gone, and you can tell she is too.
The surgeon also gave the ok to remove her main bandages, so we got to see how well her old g-tube hole got stitched up (~15 stitches). It actually looks better than we expected, but we still have to keep an eye on it in case it doesn’t heal all the way due to the damaged tissue that was against her rib for so long. We can’t quite see the new j-tube stitches yet, but those should be much smaller and we should get to see those in the next few days.
For pain meds, the doctors are starting to reduce her morphine drip to see if she can tolerate less. So far she is doing good – heart rate staying down and she seems pretty comfortable. But we want to take this slow so her pain doesn’t come back. Morphine also slows down the gut, and now that she is feeding a little with the j-tube, the doctors want her to continue passing things.
We are slowly increasing Casey’s food per hour. She has been handling it really well so far. The doctors were all concerned about BM’s (or lack there of) when increasing her rate. To get things started they gave Casey a little, productive help earlier today. We were worried about her straining or having a hard time, but she was able to go without much drama at all. Since then she has been passing gas off and on. It’s funny how excited everyone gets around here over poop and gas.
Some friends stopped by through out the day to say hello and check in on the princess. Casey was kind of out of it most of the day. We appreciated the visitors, but I am not sure she knew they were here.
Although we still have a long way to go with her lungs, overall it was a great day for her!
Casey slept a lot today and woke up (WIDE awake) about 10PM tonight. She is happily watching her ponies now. We really hope that she goes back to sleep soon so that we can have another good night. We’ll see.