Wednesday Morning, 9/19/07

Nathan is surprisingly alert this morning. He's lying in bed right now eyes partly open, holding Christa's hands and watching a movie on her laptop. He even waved to me once, and is mouthing words and able to respond with nodding and shaking his head. I wouldn't normally want to expose him to this much stimuli this soon after surgery, but watching movies tends to make him sleepy. His vitals are good, with a moderately high heart rate. Everything else looks good, including his breathing. There's a chance he will be extubated (have the breathing tube removed) sometime tomorrow. Within a few days after that (or sooner), he could be back to one of the regular wings.

It's hard to assimilate that Nathan really is in better shape than yesterday morning, when he was sitting up playing with toys and chatting. But really, he is. The surgeon did a lot of work to repair "adhesions" (scar tissue, I think) and jumbled-up intestines. It was a lot more work than any of us expected still needed to be done, but we're looking at it pragmatically; we're just grateful that they were able to get it all repaired (sans reconnection).

There are going to be quite a few adjustments for our family in the near future. We're pulling Nathan out of daycare; they've been holding his spot at a reduced tuitiion rate for the last 6 weeks. I think they're going to continue to hold his spot through his security deposit, but we won't have to pay his weekly discounted rate. Alyssa will still be there, so hopefully they'll be back together at daycare before too long.

All in all, I'm not too depressed. We're not where we hoped to be, but it could definitely be worse. It helps to keep an even keel throughout this experience. I took some pictures of Nathan when he was playing on the mat yesterday morning. I'll try to put something up this afternoon as time permits.