12/6 12:20 pm

 Look at all these cords!!!! It’s like a can of worms.

Let’s assess Ethan’s second week in ICU:

• Kicking pneumonia’s butt
• Lot’s of exercising the pacemaker to regulate arrhythmias.
• Another urinary catheter 😳 (this poor kid)
• Surviving nurse LM-BP (don’t forget the hyphen)
• Minor surgery to get heart biopsy and feed lung pressure monitoring wire
• Pulmonary hypertensive crisis
• Surgery to go back on ECMO (two trips out of the room OR and Cath lab)
• Broncoscopy 
• Negative biopsy results (Woo Hoo)
• Started IV and nasal gastric feedings
• Weaning off the paralytic

It really is going to make me think the next time I complain “it’s been a rough week.” 

Todays plan is to wean Ethan off some of one of his sedation medications.  They chose the one Ethan likes best, Versed (like valium).  They have him on a medication to help lessen or prevent episodes of ICU delirium. Ethan will hate being conscious and have his breathing tube in. 

They were electrically stimulating him with sounds like sending an electrical impulse to see if his nerves respond.  They did it on his left side and got a strong response which is good. Neurology came by to do an exam. He was a little more responsive then yesterday but not too much.

His lung pressures are still high. But I am told that it takes time for the lungs to recover from high pressures.

I spoke to the surgeon today.  She changed Ethan's dressing on his incisions (open heart as well as ICD removal).  She said normally they just leave dressings off at this point but because they are doing breathing treatments and suctioning yuck out of his tube, they will keep his incisions covered to avoid any contamination.  Sounds like a plan.  We don't need anymore issues that we already have.

The incisions look intact, a little inflamed but nothing out of the ordinary. They have good apposition and seem flat. His chest tubes have started draining more which is a sign that had they taken them out earlier in the week like they were supposed to, he likely would have had an issue. Some things just happen for a reason.

They are going to back off on the pacemaker and see if Ethan goes into flutter again or not.  They generally are going to decrease things slowly over the next few days.  There really is no talk of going off of ECMO, but I know they want to be very cautious about discontinuing that.

His lung x-rays look a little clearer every day.  So awesome.  They are kind of funny to look at with all the wires and tubes that are in him.

Sometimes we all need a reminder to step back from our busy lives. Just step back and pick something to appreciate, something simple, like the dog chasing her tail like the little goofball she is. It doesn’t matter what it is, just to stop your world and live in the moment without all the hustle and bustle and sometimes crushing weight of daily stress. That is your homework for today.