Chandra's Journal
November 29, 2005…
8:50 AM
Canon is doing so well! We’re still in PICU and will probably be here through tomorrow at least. They are monitoring how his body is reacting to the new liver and how the liver is adapting to the new blood supply. Some things they are watching are his blood sugars, blood pressure, and liver function tests. His sugars are high, which they have told us is common among every child transplanted with any organ because of the medications he has to be on. They have put him on an insulin drip to maintain his sugar level. His blood pressure has been trying to be too low, so he’s on medication to keep his pressure up. The liver function tests are coming back high, but they told us it’s a little bit deceptive because the half-life of his old liver [somethings?] is pretty long and so we’re still seeing residual numbers from the previous liver. Dr. Goss (transplant surgeon) would like to see the arterial line come out today; they use that line to draw labs and measure blood pressure. Mostly because Canon needs to be less “attached” to tubes in order to sit up and move around better. Evidently everyone’s wanting to see Canon cough and take big deep breaths in order to keep his lungs clear. His oxygen saturation numbers have been fairly low this morning, indicating a need for better, deeper breathing. Dr. McOmber (GI fellow – really nice, young guy), told me that the temptation for Canon is to take very small breaths because of the discomfort on his abdomen. But it’s a big deal that we all need to encourage him to cough and breathe deeply to prevent any lung infections.
Just now his nurse, Jenny, thought we should let him try to sit up for a minute and see if that would help his O2 sat. Canon sat up and saw Drew’s coffee cup from last night on the sink counter and said “Dink”, except his voice is very hoarse still from the tube during surgery, and he’s very sleepy, so it sounded more like “Di..i..i..ink.” It breaks my heart that he’s so hungry and thirsty. He has a tube from his nose to his stomach still that they use to make sure his stomach stays empty, except when they need to give him his medications through it. He’s on about six oral medications right now. One of them is Nystatin, to prevent an oral infection called thrush. It has to be swabbed in his mouth. When Jenny took his pacifier out and put in the swab with the medicine soaked in it, Canon sucked it dry like it was the best thing he’s ever tasted! He kept his mouth open, wanting her to do it again and again. It was so funny and sad at the same time.
Drew is taking his turn sleeping right now in our room on the 4th floor in the Ronald McDonald House on-site. He sat with Canon overnight so that I could go sleep from about midnight to 5:45 this morning.
Chandra