First week home

Wednesday we made our way to Stormont Vail Hospital where we had Henry’s blood tested for the first time since being home. His level was on the low end, so they have increased his dosage on his twice a day shot, but with the holiday next week, we won’t need to go back until July 11th to check on how the blood thinner is doing. A plus for Henry! He is “improving” with his twice a day shots.

Today we headed back up to Children’s Mercy to have more blood work, x-ray, and short echo done to see how his heart is doing. Everything looked good or normal! We will now be able to give Henry 20 ounces of water a day, stop one of three diuretics, but we need to add more salt to his diet. Probably the only time cardiology will say “limit your water, eat more salt!” Henry is still on a low fat diet until next week. I believe a chocolate croissant will be requested once this has been lifted.

The stitches have been removed where his drain tubes were at. The site there, as well as his chest, still look good! The chest will take 4-6 weeks to heal. Let me tell you, it’s been a little more of a challenge to pick him up by scoping him under the bottom.

I apparently spoke too soon earlier, as we have started up on the Tylenol again, at least once a day. The oxycodone has also been removed from his prescibed medicines.

Henry is taking about two naps a day. He is taking his normal after lunch nap, but about an hour after his morning shot, he will usually take a long cat nap.

He is also not sleeping that great at night. Since he is being limited on water still, we haven’t been able to give his mug of water to take to bed. Hopefully not having that, and some mild pain, is what causing the sleeping problems. The fireworks probably aren’t helping the situation right now either.

Still, not too bad for having open heart surgery a little over two weeks ago! Thank you everyone for your prayers and support! We head back up to see Henry’s cardiologist on July 9th. Hopefully another good report!

On the recovery road

We are not even two weeks post surgery and today we did not give any pain medicine to Henry! What a little rock star, or as he will say, Super Fontan. FYI, Sisters by Heart has a cute book called Super Fontan in their care packages for kids who will be having the Fontan Surgery. It’s where the cape came from too!

http://www.sistersbyheart.org/content/nominations

Wednesday will be a test for all three of us, as we will be heading over to Stormont Vail to have blood drawn to check on the blood thinner levels. These shots are not to be taken lightly. They have been our largest struggle since getting home. We have started a sticker chart for Henry for each time slot he is either doing medicine or having the Lovenox shots. Tonight we even entertained Henry by going to a different room, and having a small bag of M&Ms afterwards.

Henry is doing well on the liquid restriction. He is currently limited to 12 ounces of water a day. This hasn’t been as big of a struggle, but he will ask for water, so we will offer him something else. For the most part, he will take us up on the offer. We have stopped giving him a glass of water to go to bed with for the time being.

The fat restriction (41-45 grams) hasn’t been too bad either. I won’t be taking him to Starbucks and the Farmers Market while on the restriction, as his favorite thing is chocolate croissant. (Just one is half his allowed fat grams for the day)

Thank you friends and new friends for the wonderful things that have been sent to Henry! They have allowed us to do some fun things rather than just chilling in front of the screen.

We head back to Children’s on Friday to have more blood drawn, a chest xray, and visit with the surgeon to see how everything is healing.

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers!

Home!

We managed to escape out of the hospital on a Saturday!

Last weekend went well. We got sent up to recovery late Friday after waiting half a day to get a PICC line placed in Henry. A few IV lines were pulled, as well as his pacemaker wires. Then up we went to the recovery floor! Starting Saturday night, the nurses started to have problem drawing blood from Henry’s PICC line. So after a few rounds of TPA, we ended up doing an ultrasound on his arm.

It saddens me to report Henry has/had a small clot on the line. Because of this we had to start doing manual blood draws for lab, as well as start a regime of twice a day shots to thin out Henry’s blood. We will need to do this for three months, then have a follow up with hematology.

Honestly I think that set Henry back a few days. He was a pretty hapy camper Monday. We had musical therapy come by, and he was smiling a lot! He was also starting to eat, as well as getting close to his liquid restriction level. It has been a struggle now to do meds, where before we didn’t have problems. Henry also used to do great with blood draws, but after someone tried drawing from his ankle, that really put him over the edge.

So we took it it easy with him on Tuesday. By Wednesday he was still fighting on a few things, but we made it a priorty to have the tv off, and to start using the hospital bed as a napping and bedtime only place, with a couple of exceptions.

By Thursday his drainage was dropping, and the cardiology team decided to pull the drain tubes on Friday. We prepared Henry by providing him some medicine beforehand to help ease the pain, and asked to do lab work as well to get everything done and over with. Our lovenox blood thinner was delivered as well, and we spoke with our Pallaitive Care Nurse, discussing what Henry’s next steps with that team will be. Since the drain tubes came out, we also took Henry off oxygen. He had to be monitored for an hour, and he did great!

We left the hospital before 10. We got home, did some unpacking, ate lunch, and Henry took a nap in his room.

We are all exhausted to say the least. We have 3 diuretics we will be working on to wean off, as well as monitoring Henry’s water intake, being on a low fat diet, and making sure to add some additional sodium to his diet. 

We return back to the hospital Friday, and will do lab work and xrays prior to the doctor visit. We have a visit scheduled with Henry’s cardiologist in July.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts, prayers, and support! It is wonderful to be home.

Moved up, 3 year coming home anniversary

Greetings from Children’s Mercy!
Last Tuesday, I received a call that the hospital had a cancellation, and asked if we would like to move our appointment to Thursday! So we took it!
Henry did great. The day was long, and we finally were reunited around 3. They made him a Chase sticker for his chest.

Henry also had his shortest stay in the ICU. We moved up to the floor a little over 24 hours.
He continues to do better each day. Henry is on liquid restriction, as well as can only have 6 oz of water a day. He had also been placed on a low fat diet, which we will need to stay on for at least 6 weeks.

He will stay on oxygen while he still has drain tubes. Walking around will help, as well as some diuretics.

We also celebrate today for Henry’s 3rd year anniversary of coming home! He has certainly made so much progress since then!

Sorry its short, but Henry keeps us pretty busy right now, so I am doing this during a morning nap.

Thanks everyone for your prayers! We are incredibly grateful for everyone’s support, love, and thoughts!

Oh! Prior to surgery, Henry’s O2 levels were in the low 80s. We haven’t seen what he is like off oxygen, but with half a liter, he is running 98-100 while resting/sleeping! He will most likely be in the mid 80’s to low 90’s once he doesn’t have that support.

Cancelled Again

The last few days have been an emotional roller coaster to say the very least.
Henry’s pre admission testing went well! He did great providing a urine sample, having blood drawn, and having a lot of staff listen to his heart and lungs. We signed a lot of paperwork, then ended the hospital visit with a chest xray. Everything came back great!

We checked in to the Ronald McDonald House, and spent the day hanging out with each other.
After scrubbing down Henry, putting special ointment on him, and sending him off to bed, we received a phone call after 9pm to tell us there was an emergency at the hospital and that our surgeon would be unable to do Henry’s surgery in the morning.
::insert all the feelings:
We were told someone would call us back in the morning before 9, and if we didn’t hear from yhem, to give them a call.
We didn’t get the call, so I called them. The earliest they can get us back on is the 18th, with us being on call for any cancellations.
::insert more feelings and emotions::
So we checked out of the Ronald McDonald House. They were very nice about everything and gave us tickets to the aquarium! Henry loved it. It helped ease our emotions seeing Henry’s face light up.

So now we wait, keeping Henry healthy and strong. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers for our awesome rockstar Henry!