Family Updates

First post-op visit . . .

Tyler continues to have his good and bad days while at home. A little pain here and there, but everything we've seen him do, has been nothing different than what we experienced over the last three weeks. He is on a round-the-clock rigorous medicine schedule and Blake drain maintenance, and I seem to be holding down the fort and my job alright. Today, I was so happy that Jarrett was able to spend his first full day with Tyler and I, in our own home, since bringing Mr. T home on Saturday... and let me tell you, it was great to have us together!

So, yesterday (Tuesday, June 26th) Tyler and I went back to Children's Mercy for his first --of many-- weekly checkups. The checkup included 1) bloodwork 2) chest xray 3) clinic visit with a Cardiovascular Surgery Nurse. The appts will be the same time, every single Tuesday. All in all, it was a very good visit. His labs still remained quite stable, still a few things on the low side, but absolutely nothing that is cause for concern right now. However, his chest xray did show a smidge extra fluid accumulation (increased pleural effusion) on that left side though. Remember when I mentioned last Tuesday that he was to receive a third diuretic? Well, he needed a dose before we went home on Saturday, and then also needed another dose yesterday. Therefore, the nurse seems as though we'll be battling fluid for a little bit, so she went ahead and prescribed that third diuretic to be used every third day, at home, inconjunction with his two other diuretics.
Other good news was that his oxygen saturation during our checkup appointment read 97 **yea!**, and his blood pressure was 92/52 **yea!**... Even though his chest isn't quite there yet, everything else seems to be healing and doing quite well.

A huge thank you to Beth Lacy and Monica Keller for arranging the Meal Train for us. Having a nice meal planned and brought out to the house has been more of a blessing in disguise than I would have ever imagined... I honestly did not expect my/our homelife back with him to be so full of constant care. This whole at-home Blake drain thing is something we never dealt with on his first two open heart surgeries, as they were always pulled before we were discharged.

Now if I could only find time to schedule in a 45 minute walk by myself each night, I'd be set. lol!

Thanks again all -- and I'll continue to post a few times a week.

Love, Kathleen