Day 13

August 12th

Oh man...the days are getting longer!  At first they were flying by and now they seem to take forever! I am assuming it has to do with how tired I am...pretty sure thats the culprit.  Hospital life is a whole different type of tired.  I mean you don't get the best sleep for sure, but you also don't move around much.  I literally spend 3 minutes total outside on the average day.  A minute and a half walk to and from the Ronald McDonald House...that's it.  And it is ok.  There is no where else I would rather be right now.  Fresh air can wait :)

Today was a hard day (but a good day) for Stephen.  It began with getting his chest the pulled pretty early!  X-ray was clear and they felt confident to take it out!  I can't handle being in the room for that stuff, so the kids and I went on a little walk and found this cute little outside play area while we waited.

After the chest tube was pulled they had to change the dressings on his TT line...he hated that more than the chest tube removal itself =(  And to top off the hard (painful) morning they couldn't get labs from his TT line so they had to poke him =(  We had them use a lidocaine patch so he wouldn't feel it, but emotionally he was spent, so tears were shed.

Luckily...he got over it and enjoyed playing some video games! And the highlight of the day for me was this bare face!!!  This made me SO happy!!!!

HIs siblings also had a very eventful day!  I got a call from the RMH on the morning saying they had 4 tickets available for us to see the Padre game in the OWNERS SUITE!!!  I mean, we are HUGE Angels fans, but we also just LOVE baseball and couldn't pass this up!  So Joe got to take the kids to the game and I stayed back and got to love on Stephen.  They had a blast!!!  They got to meet the wonderful, and very generous, owner and his wife.  They had incredible seats, were given some nice hats, and here was a chef in the suite and all you eat food and drinks...VIP treatment!  They even sent Joe back with food for me, and a swag bag for Stephen since he couldn't be there...so extremely thoughtful.  And once they fond out we were Angels fans they offered tickets to any of the next 3 games when the Angels are in town!  If we are still in the hospital tomorrow Joe will be taking the older kiddos =)  I asked one the the NP's how soon is too soon to go to a baseball game once Stephen busts out of this place.  She said he should be cleared after his week follow up...I said "so probably not Wednesday?"  and oh her face...it was pretty awesome.  I mean, it doesn't hurt to ask right?!

So, there is a chance that we get to go home tomorrow...but I am not getting my hopes up yet.  They are going to treat it like we are and make him NPO staring at 2am b/c he will need to be sedated for them to remove his central line (because it goes directly in his heart!).  They would then keep him for a few hours, do a repeat ECHO, chest X-ray and labs and if all look good we are out of here!!!

That being said...he started having some strange rhythm issues this afternoon and they have seemed to increase in the night.  He keeps having asymptomatic (no signs other than the monitor shown) tachycardia (fast heart rate...up to 190 just resting!).  The cardiologist didn't seem too concerned about it.  Even thinks (hopes) it is the TT line effecting the heart.  But either way it needs to be watched/monitored.  This cold keep us in an extra night...and I almost hope it does!  I don't want to go home with any potential problems.  So prayers for this speedy heart rate to stop would be wonderful!

We are close!!!  We are so VERY close!  I know things can change in a blink of an eye, but for right now I am just grateful to have made it this far without any major bumps in the road.  There have been bumps, but compared to other situations, I would take these hiccups!  

And now, I am officially tired and heading to bed.  We hopefully have a big day ahead of us!!!!