May 11, 2013

It's 4 am and since I can't sleep, it seems like a good time to update the blog.  Erin slept quite a bit of yesterday afternoon and evening.  She was up watching the basketball game with me for awhile, and then up again from 2 - 3 am.  She was doing a great job keeping stuff down, but has had a few incidents of getting sick, including one at 2:30 am.  But overall, better.  She is sounding more normal.  She also has her timing down pat.  As soon as I drift off after making sure she really is asleep, she wakes up and calls my name.  It turns out that sleeping in a hospital room in a recliner is a terrific way to solve the problem of too much sleep.

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that her arterial lines in her groin were taken out in the morning while I was back at our hotel showering.  Sheila tells me that it was very unpleasant, as you would expect.  When the nurse went to check the dressing yesterday afternoon, Erin was very concerned and asked if she was going to hurt her again.  Broke my heart.

Today's horror will be the removal of her chest tube.  Having had one, I fully remember the unpleasantness of having it removed.  It has been causing Erin pain, and in the night she touched it twice and caused herself great discomfort.  Having it out will be a blessing, but the process will be hell.

Interestingly, the night nurse Kim told me that she had heart surgery when she was 5.  When I asked her about it, she admitted that she had the same operation (ASD closure) that Erin had.  I think it was beneficial for Erin to see Kim and understand that she had undergone the same procedure so many years ago.  The bad part of the story is that the one memory that stands out for Kim is the removal of the chest tube.

After that, the one remaining line she will have in is the line in her jugular vein.  They have been keeping that one in to give her meds and IV's.  Tonight she is on fluids to offset her inability to take in enough water.  My guess is that one stays until Sunday.

The surreal part of all of this is that we came in girded for battle, expecting major heart reconstruction and all the attendant risks that goes with it, and had a relatively "routine" procedure instead.  Even the head ICU nurse told me that they were all geared up for major patient care, and then when Erin "only" had the ASD closure, their position was this one's no big deal relatively speaking to what they deal with on a regular basis.  In spite of the routine nature of her surgery, it still has all of the trials and tribulations of heart surgery and recovery.  It is simply a tough journey that one has to go through to get to the end goal, a heart the functions more normally.  It's almost like you don't know what to do with the emotions and thoughts that had built up over how difficult and challenging and frankly risky this all was going to be, especially when it turns out to be far less complicated.  In the end, I have decided it is a very good problem to have.