Thursday afternoon/evening

The afternoon was pretty much the same as the morning today... because she is so sedated, she really just lays there, and when you change her diaper and stuff she feels like a rag doll, just really limp. She is still having troubles with gunk in her lungs and her tube not being in exactly the right place; they've done a couple more chest x-rays on her, and one of the surgeons is supposed to come in sometime tonight and check on her.

Dr. Potter came in while I was in the shower (somehow I had great timing today and missed him every time he came in...) and ordered her another dose of Lasix. They are watching her lungs very carefully, and her night nurse, Laurie, told me that the last x-ray showed that her right lower lobe is not as aerated as it should be. So it's sort of wait-and-see with her lungs, it seems... I don't doubt that she can breathe on her own though, I really think it's probably a lot to do with the swelling and sedation. She's been breathing over the vent a few times today, and when she does that, they have to give her more sedative, because they don't want her fighting it so much.

Her heartrate has been very high for most of the day, too... but hopefully that, too, will resolve itself over the next day or two post-surgery. It's sort of discouraging almost, that she was doing better on these issues before the surgery, but I try to just remind myself that she's all fixed now and all of these things are just the only way her body is able to react to the fact that she had surgery yesterday. I've never had a major surgery, so I can only imagine what her little body is going through...

Her blood pressure is really low again... I wouldn't be too surprised if they put her back on the Dopamine... we'll see what the surgeon says when he comes by.

I did get a chance to take a much better picture of her belly button. She will have basically a little dimple of a belly button, with another straight scar extending from the right side of it, where the tape is.

Depending on what time it is when the surgeon actually comes in (not sure if it'll be Dr. Potter or the other dark-haired guy whose name starts with an S) I may or may not post another update tonight. I do plan to tell Laurie to let the surgeon know that if I am asleep when he comes in, he should wake me up; because I want to know about her lungs from someone who actually knows and is in charge of making decisions. I also want to ask if they still intend to start lowering the Atavan tomorrow...