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Little Al just hung out today, they have him sedated so he rests all the time. So,
tonight I decided to just post a bunch of pictures we took today, click here to see
them. I also re-posted a description of Little Al's heart defect for those who had
not had a chance to read it earlier. Click here to see it.
Little Al is resting comfortably again today...of course, it could be the drugs... At
this time, we are told he is the first one scheduled for surgery tomorrow, which
means he will be going in sometime between 7:00 & 8:00 AM. We are planning on
getting to the hospital around 5:00 AM to spend a little time with him before they
take him to anesthesiology. If all goes as planned, the surgery should take from 4 to
6 hours. They are supposed to give us hourly updates. I will try to put updates out
here as often as I can, I imagine with an hour between I should be able to get
something here. The hard part may be finding a telephone jack to plug in to. Believe
it or not, updating the site helps us to cope. I have included a few pictures from
today to satisfy anyone's Little Al jones that you might have...click here for them.
Click here for all the surgery day updates just as they were originally posted.
Well, I apologize for not putting another update out till now, Holly & I were pretty
tired last night and decided to relax and get some rest pretty earlier.
After seeing Holly's parents and sister off at around 4:00 pm, we headed back to
see Little Al for awhile. He was still doing great and making good progress. Still
being drugged out, he didn't have much to say, so we kissed him goodnight and let
him get more rest.
This morning brought lots of sunshine, warm weather and great progress for Little
Al!
As soon as we got to the hospital we could see that he was not as swollen as we
expected, and....he was even opening his eyes a little bit!!!! That was a real treat
for mom. Here are the details of this morning...
- His blood pressure is staying strong, they have even started to ween him off some
of the drugs that regulate this. Since his pressure is strong, he did not have to
receive any more fluids during the night, therefore no more swelling!
- The drainage from his chest has subsided and almost stopped completely, another
good thing!
- They are slowly weening him off of the morphine which has been keeping him
sedated so much, that explains him becoming a little alert and the occasional open
eye!
- He is urinating a small amount, not as much as we would like, but better than
nothing! They don't expect this to be a problem unless he doesn't pick up the pace
in the next 24 - 36 hours. They started to administer drugs to aid him in this.
- His chest is still open, they do not close this until he has drained off all the
fluids that were added during surgery, so the urinating has a lot to do with this.
He has a bandage in place at this time.
- While we were there, they started to ween him from the respirator because he
was starting to take some breaths on this own. Another GREAT thing!
I think that covers all or most of it.
Having described a lot, I hope you have a pretty good idea of what he looks like.
If so, I have attached 2 photos of him after surgery, but I want you to view them
with a warning. He has lots of tubes and bandages and his color is almost gone,
but all of this was expected. So, if you are not alarmed by these things, go to the
link below to see Little Al shortly after surgery. Otherwise, enjoy the pictures that
were taken right before surgery.
Ryan, Holly & family
!!!WARNING!!!
Link to photos of Little Al after surgery, read above paragraph
!!!WARNING!!!
Trying to get back on the nightly update schedule thing......
Holly & I just got back from dinner and visiting Little Al. He is continuing to
progress nicely. The biggest news is his urine output has increased! This means
that his kidneys are returning to normal function,...well at least slowly. He is off
one of his blood pressure medications and maintaining a good pressure! He is
slowly gaining some color back, but we found out today that he will not regain full
color until after the third surgery.
So not much else to report, unless you want to hear about the great place we ate
dinner ate... If you are ever in Ann Arbor, check out The Grizzly Peak
micro-brewery. Great food and great brews!
Until tomorrow!
Ryan, Holly & family...
GO WOLVERINES!!!
Today was such a wonderful day! When Ryan and I went to visit Little Al in the
morning, we went to his bedside, said "hi" to our little guy, and he opened his eyes
up right away, and tried to focus on us. We stayed for about 2 hours, and he had
his eyes open the whole time!! Daddy was so excited about this progress, that we
went straight to Target after our visit, and he bought him a Leatherman Squirt. Of
course, in the morning, we didn't have our cameras or anything, so when we went
back for the afternoon, we were prepared to take a million pictures and videos!
Of course, Alan at first was not going to cooperate, but our wonderful nurse, Kris,
moved him around, and he woke up again! That is when all these pictures were
taken. The bear in the above right and below photos is one that Alan's big sisters
bought for him. If you click on either one, you'll see that the t-shirt says "I love
my big sisters". We took it into him yesterday, and promised Erin and Megan that
we would take pictures of it today so they could see their little brother with the
bear they bought him. This was before Kris woke him up for us!!
All of his stats are looking wonderful! He is still on the vent, but they keep turning
it down so that he will breathe on his own more and more, and eventually without it!
It is very exciting to watch all the breaths he takes on his own!
Dr. Bove stopped in to see Little Al this afternoon and said everything looks
wonderful. He is going to keep letting the fluid drain out this weekend, and try to
close his chest up Sunday or Monday. Alan's swelling went down a lot overnight
and throughout the day, and his color, as you can see is really good! After the
chest is closed, we will start working on weaning him off the vent and the other
meds he is on.
As you can see, we really had a great day today. We know we still have a long
road, but just seeing our son open his eyes for the first time showed us that there
really is a light at the end of this tunnel! He is a big strong boy, and he's doing
everything he's supposed to be doing to get out of here and home as soon as he can!
Everyone, keep sending us messages, we love getting up every morning and reading
them...seeing who wrote to us! We can't wait to get home and introduce our big boy
to all our friends and family, as I'm sure you can't wait, either! So, keep sending
us good vibes, and maybe we'll be able to leave here that much sooner!
We love you!
Holly, Ryan and family
P.S. For those of you who cringe every time we say something about the Michigan
Wolverines, please understand...we still love our Hawkeyes, but we just have to
support the school where our son is going to play baseball and become a Doctor...
Tonight is going to be pretty short...for two reasons:
1 - It is Saturday and we feel like taking a small break tonight, sorry, but we
promise to be back tomorrow night with a bigger, better entry!
2 - Little Al basically hung out and continued his recovery with no major changes.
They tried to lower his morphine drip, but he didn't like that too much and let them
know it. So they put it back up.
Hopefully we can report tomorrow night that his chest has been closed, the night
nurse seemed to think he might be ready for that!
Until tomorrow....
Ryan & Holly
Hi all! Not much to report on today. Ryan woke up with a swollen eye, and scared
that it might be pink eye, I dropped him off at the ER on my way to see Little Al.
Turns out it is just a sty, so nothing to worry about. When he got up to Alan's
room, the cardiologist also looked at it just to make sure it wasn't something
contagious! Thank goodness it's not!
When I got to the ICU, Alan was awake and very agitated. It's not so much fun to
see him awake now because he's on less sedative, and realizes that he has tubes
down his throat. That makes him thrash around and cry which breaks my heart
because there is nothing I can do. He looks at me with those huge blue eyes, and it
seems like he is pleading with me to do something, and I can't. It's horrible! I did,
however get him calmed down after awhile.
Ryan spent two long hours in the ER, and by the time he got up to Little Al's room,
he was agitated again. We could tell he was uncomfortable with the tube situation
(they had moved it, and we wondered if he didn't like how they moved it). But, the
nurse wasn't listening to us. What do we know, right?
He finally fell asleep, and we left to eat lunch and watch the race. We went back
to see him at about 6 and he had a new nurse. Alan's saturation number kept going
very low, and the nurse who was there couldn't figure out why. They had to keep
suctioning him out, but his numbers would just go right back down. Ryan just had a
feeling that tube was in the wrong spot. The nurse decided to x-ray him and take
off his dressing and look in his chest to see if he had fluid or lung issues, and we
had to leave the room for that. After a very long hour, the new, very competent
nurse came out to explain that the tube was too far down in his chest
(hmmm...imagine that), so she moved it back up, gave him some Tylenol and some
sleeping medicine. FINALLY!!! So, we went in one more time, and it was much
better. This nurse told us exactly what was going on, what she was planning, and
answered all our questions.
He should get his chest closed tomorrow. She said that they want to do that ASAP
because of the chance of infection. When his chest is closed, then we will get to
ween him from his vent, and his meds. Then try eating and move on out of the ICU!
It sounds like I will be staying in the hospital most of the time when he moves so
that I can learn to feed him and give him his meds and stuff. The nurse said we
will sign up for a CPR class tomorrow and get that out of the way.
Well, I guess this is a little long for not much to report! We get our wonderful
nurse Kris back tomorrow. Ryan, Alan and I are all thankful for her! She is the
best! Next weekend, my friend Rachelle, and our friends Art and Kirs may be
coming to see us. So, that should be fun!
Hopefully tomorrow will bring news that the chest is closed!!! Until then...GO
WOLVERINES!
Love to you all!
Holly, Ryan, and family