Yesterday was Colin's 6 week post op check up with cardiology. We were expecting to be lifted on a lot of his restrictions and to get back to pretty much our normal lives and routine... but Colin's body had other plans (the complete opposite really).
But before I get into how we ended up with a room on the 15th floor (Cardiac step-down unit), the GREAT NEWS is Colin's heart function looked great and no leaking in his valve! Colin's Fontan surgery is serving his heart really well. And we are very very thankful for that!
OKAY.. So Colin's echo and chest x-ray showed a build up of fluid. Colin had a chest x-ray 10 days before that looked "amazing", so they went down on his diuretics. But with that decrease of medicine, the fluid has been accumulating without us knowing. When we got discharged from the hospital, they gave us warning signs to look for fluid accumulation: tiredness, labored breathing, changes in his color. Colin exhibited NONE of those warning signs, he has actually been bouncing off the walls, full of energy. Even his doctor was shocked after seeing the x-ray and watching him RUN around the room as pink as can be.
So the decision was to be admitted and put in an IV to give him IV diuretics which are much stronger than the oral ones he was taking and to increase the amount he is on. There is a chance that if it does not clear up with the meds, a chest tube will need to be put in to help it. Colin is food/water restricted this morning just in case the tube needed to go in. We are waiting on them to make a decision on that.
His O2 sats when we were in clinic yesterday were at 92, then we came to the floor it was 94.. but overnight he was hanging around 88, so this morning they have him on a low does of oxygen through a nasal cannula.. which he is pretty mad about having. But the good thing is they just have it resting under his nose at this point and NOT taped down and in his nose.
Fluid is a common problem for post Fontan kids, so this is not really a shock to us considering we spent 25 days here because of fluid, but it has been a blow back to reality that Colin's body is still trying to recover from surgery even though he looks and feels fine and is ready to get back to his normal life, it is just going to take us longer.
A Few prayer request:
1. PLEASE PRAY that the IV diuretics quickly solve his fluid problem and we can be home very soon.
2. That he does NOT have to get a chest tube again.
3. That this does not break his spirit having to be back in the hospital yet again, because it has broken mine just a bit. I have to admit, I cried when they admitted us back in.
4. His O2 sats are just low due to fluid and that once the fluid lowers his O2 goes back up
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