Lianna's Journal

Chest tubes and CVL came out this morning. Matt is napping now, getting ready for his big afternoon of getting up to sit in the chair! His fever has subsided, but the white blood count is still elevated so he'll keep getting the antibiotics. Thanks to all of you who have posted well wishes and shared your experiences; we love hearing from you!

Matt is hanging in there; still draining from his chest tubes way more than he should be to have a shot at getting them out (a ways to go yet). He also still has a fever of 102.4, sweating a bit (likes ice packs or cool washcloths on his forehead and behind his neck). They did start him on a new, broader spectrum antibiotic just to cover all the bases and took blood to send out for cultures. They really believe that there isn't an infection, but they aren't taking any chances. His heart rhythms appear to have normalized (hooray!), and he seems semi-conscious (lots of in and out), and can respond to questions by nodding or shaking his head. He keeps reaching for the chest tubes and the breathing tube, but so far hasn't gotten hold of either. The nurse told us tonight that they have called a pain team for tomorrow since they plan to try and take the breathing tube out. He will need to be more awake to breathe on his own, so the pain will need to be managed. Dave and I have regained some strength throughout the afternoon - I honestly felt the same sort of exhaustion I used to experience postpartum! It's such a weird, disorienting kind of exhaustion, and I'd forgotten how debilitating it can be. Simply no energy! We do feel like things are getting better, though, and if we can just get a solid night's sleep, we'll be ready to help Matt tomorrow.

They don't expect to remove the breathing tube today, so Matt will likely not remember much. We are going to fall back and regroup to keep ourselves functioning. I'm afraid that we still feel very dazed and disoriented after the past 36 hours, and we will likely need all our wits and strength for the next few days to help Matt.

Last night they had to take Matt back into the OR and open his chest again. The bleeding wasn't coming from the heart, but rather from inside the chest wall. We stayed all night and got to see him as they rolled him out of the OR and back to ICU. Then, we went back to the Ronald McDonald House to go to sleep at around 5:30 a.m. this morning.

We received a call just after 11:30 last night from the ICU. Matt is bleeding from his chest tubes more than he should. Dr. Mitchell has returned to the hospital to examine him and he may need to go back to the OR. Please pray for him. Thank you