Thursday Evening, 8/9/07

I went to work this morning. My employer has been awesome about the whole situation, basically telling me to stay away and take care of my family. Under normal circumstances you might expect this sort of reaction, but consider that I've only been working there for a week!

Christa came home around the time I was leaving and went up to nap for a few hours. I called her at 11:30am to wake her up (per her instructions, against my better judgement) and she was already awake. By 1pm she was at the hospital again. She really needs to pace herself, but there's not much you can do to deter a dedicated mom. She called me shortly thereafter to let me know that Nathan is doing very well. His swelling is still going down. In fact, she said you can even see wrinkles on his neck. His vitals and breathing are both doing well.

We both headed home around 3:30-4pm, although I first ran by the daycare to pick up Alyssa. After eating dinner as a family (well, sorta), I headed back up to the hospital by myself. Thankfully the rain storms had subsided for a bit, making it an easy drive up to Baltimore. I arrived at UMMC around 9pm and headed up to the PICU.

I couldn't tell a noticeable difference in Nathan's swelling, although all of the staff seemed very pleased with his progress. His heart rate was steady at 170bpm, his blood pressure was doing great at 98/58, and his oxygen was at 100 (perfect!). Considering he was doing most of the breathing himself, these were all very good numbers. I noticed that his lipids were turned off, and his nurse explained this was because of a high triglycerides count. No big deal. At some point his blood pressure spiked up to 140/60; the nurse suspected this was due to pain, so they would probably give him more pain medication when his current dose of Tylenol wore off.

When I had the chance, I pulled aside the chief attendant, Suzanna. Christa and I both like her, she's very personable and really comes across as someone who can identify with our dilemma (indeed, she has a 2-year old). I wanted to know if Nathan has any major obstacles left; she said no, he's doing very well and "is going to be fine". He's going to need plenty of time to heal, but he's definitely on the road to recovery (YEEEEEHAAAWW!!!!). Needless to say, this really made my day. Doctors in an ICU generally won't give any sort of "guarantees" or commit themselves to a long-term prognosis. I don't know if I've ever been so happy and relieved as I was right then. I think I'll sleep good tonight.