Tuesday Afternoon, 8/14/07

They say that all good things come to those who wait. Easier said than done, especially when it's your child in a hospital bed. Yesterday was a little crazy; I wasn't able to focus on work, so I left around noon for the hospital. Nathan's condition hadn't improved, and the surgeons were getting more concerned about the adema. A cadre of surgeons made their rounds around 2:30pm, surrounding Nathan and discussing their options. The head of surgery stepped aside to explain that their preference is still to wait and monitor, rather than performing additional surgery to alleviate the swelling. They tried to insert a tube through Nathan's stoma, but that was unsuccessful. All in all, not much really happened given all the shuffling around.

We were expecting Dr. Alaish (who performed Nathan's surgery) to visit around 5pm. Both Christa and I wanted to be there to speak with him, but Alyssa also had her dance class at 5pm. I felt it was more important for Christa to speak with the surgeon, so I left around 3pm to pick up Alyssa.

Around 6:30pm, Christa called me on her mobile phone while driving home. The surgeon hadn't shown up, and the ICU staff expected he had been delayed and would likely not be able to make it by at all.

Not long after, the surgeon called me at home. He had indeed been delayed, but finally managed to get by to see Nathan. He said that Nathan's vitals were looking very good, particularly his CO2. He was also able to extract some fluid from Nathan's stoma and had attached an ostomy bag. He reiterated that his preference was to wait and monitor Nathan's progress for now.

The Good News

Christa and my mom went to the hospital this morning while I went to work. Christa called me around 10am to let me know that Nathan had a good evening and is showing signs of improvement. He's been passing quite a bit of fluid, both from his urine and through the ostomy. His fever is almost gone, and his numbers all look great. As of noon today, his abdomen measurement was around 57cm (versus 59cm yesterday), which really gives us reason to be optimistic. We're both very cautious to get too excited, since he could have a regression at any point. Still, it feels great to see Nathan start to make a recovery. Let's hope he continues to make steady progress through tonight and tomorrow.