Post-op, Day 3

Thank you, thank you, thank you for offering up prayers on Ethan's behalf after last night's post! I also received some very encouraging messages that helped to ease the anxiety I was feeling about Ethan's oxygen saturations and shoulder pain. On top of all that, we had good, separate conversations with both Dr. I and Dr. J today and neither of them are concerned about either issue.  It seems I just needed to turn that over to the Lord and give Ethan some time.

Ethan was wheeled down to radiology first thing this morning for a chest x-ray.  It looked pretty good for three days post-op, but there is still a small area of 'wetness' that we'd like to see resolve.  Between chest PT, walking, and Lasix, we're confident that this will clear up fairly soon.  He'll have another x-ray tomorrow morning and we'll go from there.  However, even with the wetness, Ethan maintained oxygen saturations in the mid-to-high nineties all day! I watched those blue numbers on his monitor just about all day long, with wonder in my eyes and gratitude in my heart.

As far as the shoulder pain goes, he only complained about it once or twice.  He seemed pretty sore, in general, today so we're trying to stay on top of the pain before it really bothers him.  (By "stay on top of the pain", I mean regular Motrin every 4-6 hours. Children's Motrin! Three days after heart surgery! Kids are crazy strong.)  As God heals his body with each passing day, we're hopeful that these kinks will work themselves out and resolve completely.

Ethan has seemed the most like himself today and I am so thankful.  Believe it or not, we had to stop the kid from running (RUNNING!) during one of our walks today.  Waiting hours on end for your child to come out of open-heart surgery is stressful.  Keeping them from breaking into a jog three days after said surgery is a whole other kind of stress, but I'll take it!

I don't have any specific requests for Ethan tonight, but will you please pray for our heart buddy Thelo? His mom, Lori, and I met a few months ago at a meeting organized through Duke and we have become fast friends.  It just so happened (thanks, God) that we ended up at the hospital together with our boys, even sharing the same room in the PCICU for a night.  It has been such a sweet gift having her around, but of course this means that she's there for her own child, too.  Thelo has been struggling with his oxygen levels, and has spiked a fever over the past twenty-four hours.  His little body has endured a lot over the past week and the weariness is setting in.  Will you please pray for Thelo and Lori? Pray for endurance and peace, strength and patience.  Pray for wisdom for Thelo's medical team.  Pray comfort and for rest.

Thank you for your love, your encouragement, and your prayers.  We love y'all!