Day Two

Gee, how in the world could this only have been two days.  It feels like weeks.

This morning did not start out too well.  They tried to remove the vent and while he can in fact breathe on his own, his heart statistics showed their lack of appreciation.
This is all so kind of hard to explain.  He has a tube running from his leg to the top of his heart, attached to a balloon.  It all comes from a pump. The pump causes the balloon to fill and push on the heart, helping the heart out.  The problem, he can't be moved much at all, or bad bleeding could occur.
Sooo, when he was trying to breathe, he was flat on his back.  They told me folks with a big incision in the chest can't deep breathe flat on their back. Handy Man proved this to be true.
However, if you can't get off the vent you can't strengthen your lung and heart by breathing deep and coughing.  Next worry- pneumonia.
After that experience, he went too long without pain meds and when I came back he was in terrible shape.  Grimacing and sort of like shivering, only he wasn't cold.  Thankfully my pastor stopped by and was very quickly praying for him.  He responds well to me rubbing his head, neck, arms and him rubbing mine,  which I was doing, but I'm still not allowed in there for long. Anyway, thankfully the pain started to ease and his color came back.

 I felt like he was picking up that this was not the recovery we were told about on education day.  And after the failed vent removal and the horrible pain episode,  I just sensed a difference I didn't like.
I called his siblings to come for a wee visit.
In the afternoon they tried again, only this time the surgeon came in and oversaw some bit of movement and raising him a bit.  That  worked and out the vent came.
Praise the Lord!
Between that, having his siblings and kids and a few other family and friends trickle in for a minute, along with a bit of ice and knowing to stay on top of the pain medication, when I left to come home, he was a different patient from the morning.
So it ended up being a big improvement.
We are still not out of the woods. His heart is being supported still by the pump and multiple IV meds.   The docs are just not familiar enough with resections to be able to offer much insight as to how this will go.  It seems to me like it will go slow, removing one thing at a time to see if the heart can do the work.  In the meantime, we so very much do not need any other infections to complicate things, so hopefully all the extras like drains and balloons can come out tomorrow.  That is our prayer.
In addition, Ceece's Mom has pneumonia, so prayer for her too please.