4 Week Anniversary

I can't believe today it's been 4 weeks since Tanner's surgery. Incredible. No one could have predicted this. And what is possible to go wrong...has. Its just so frustrating because everything the doctor and nurses have told me to do...I've done. And it's funny how they make the orders...but I have to enforce them! For instance, Tanner is on a low fat diet. We've had trouble with the kitchen staff alternating meal selections for him...thinking he's eaten everything on the morning and afternoon tray. Then for dinner, they send up veggies and mashed potatoes! JEEZ...that's been today's trouble. But now I'm keeping track of how much and what he eats so they can base the fat and calorie count on what he actually consumes. I guess it gives me something to do in here! And now I have to limit Tanner's water intake because his sodium is low so they want him to have lots of Gatorade! So we just had a 15 minute scream fest of "I WANT WATER!" Ahh, life in the hospital.





So Tanner's fever was stumping the staff. His blood cultures showed no bacteria growing. But his white blood count jumped up to 22 indicating a bacterial infection. One night his fever was 103 and the next 102 degrees. They had already started giving antibiotics by IV, but they switched to a more powerful, wide range one last night. The next step was to do an ECHO (ultrasound of the heart) to see if there was any infection there (pix above). One of the Pediatric Cardiac Fellows came to do it instead of a technician. Tanner kept asking Alex, "what's that?" during the procedure (of course they had just given him morphine because they have to press on his incision site) Mark was here and we just kept holding our breath. BUT his heart LOOKS GREAT but they found another pocket of fluid. We were told sometimes fluid "hides" within scar tissue and the drain doesn't reach it. And because of the fever, Tanner hadn't been out of bed for 2 days. But Julie, our Nurse Practitioner, "stripped" the drain tubes a few times and out started to pour fluid! We were all so excited! He had small fever last night but by this morning, his white blood count was down to 20. Still high, but coming down, not going up! We are thankful for the little things! Tanner has definitely perked up today...we went for 2 wagon rides, the harvest festival, and sat by the window and played games.