27 Sep Good Night
As Gray wrote earlier, Keegan has begun making very small but steady progress in the right direction. In fact, Dr. Leonard (the lead surgeon on Keegan’s case and an amazing, Christian man) said this evening that he is confident Keegan has “turned” in the last 24 hours. He has started to urinate so much that they will probably reduce the diruetics tonight. There are two types of fluid – the swelling in his body that makes him look like a little Michelin man and fluid that keeps the veins working. It’s a fine balance (isn’t everything?) between making sure he doesn’t get “dry” veins but also getting him back down to the adorable Keegan y’all have seen in the pre-transplant pictures. If he continues on this track overnight, he may look enough like himself again to post more pictures tomorrow.
The doctors did start him back on a small amount of gas called nitric oxide, which he had been weaned off of a few days ago. When they closed his chest, the lungs and heart had to compete for room in a much smaller space than they had before. This caused the pressures in the right side of his heart to be a little too high. The nitric oxide dialates the vessels in the lungs, requiring less blood from the right side of the heart. Thus, the pressure in the heart goes down. His overall numbers looked much better at the end of the day, and they started reducing the amount of epinephrin drip.
In the biggest news of all, his chest drain was removed today. The only wires coming out of his chest now are the pacing wires (to connect a pacemaker after surgery if needed and which he hasn’t needed) and the PD catheder. Not much is draininig from the PD anymore, so that’s good too. Less is more in our book!
Keegan’s aunt Alex wanted everyone to know that Carter Blood Bank is holding a drive at Children’s next Tuesday. It is a general drive, but you can specify your credits towards Keegan’s account. Please remember that even if more blood is needed than Keegan uses (and he’s used a lot!), it will not go to waste. Blood is needed every day, and they can go into a shortage very quickly. To sign up for the drive at Children’s, you can go to Carter’s website. See the link to Keegan’s Blood Donation Plan blog entry for more details. And you might even get to visit us while you’re there.
Thanks to the “A Team” that was on shift today – Andrea, Jim, Liz, and Dr. Raju. Brian is Keegan’s nurse tonight, and he is awesome! Mamie (Maddie’s mom) has the night watch tonight. Please keep praying for small progress each day. It’s working!