Reminding everyone who is boss..

While I was typing my last post, Parker was having a doozy of a fit. Every time I would go to his side to soothe him, I would make it worse. He would raise his arms up to me and scream "Ma!" for me to pick him up. Since we can't hold him at the moment, I ended up trying to hide out from him, and Jason worked his magic for a little while. After it was all said and done, the nurse gave him a rescue dose of pain medication just to get him calm. We decided that it was best for us to leave the room for a bit. While we are here, he gets distracted easily instead of napping, so we chose to go grab lunch and let him rest peacefully. When we returned from lunch he was still snoozing, so I decided to go wash a load of clothes. They conveniently have a family lounge with washer and dryer on our floor, so it makes things easier. Jason stayed back in the room and kept an eye on Parker. I had a surprise waiting on me when I got back a few hours later, though! Parker, with his sneaky ways, managed to maneuver one of the IV's out. It wasn't being used at the time, but was just being kept in case it was needed. The nurses were fine with leaving it out altogether once he pulled it, though, because he has an IV in the other hand that could be accessed if necessary. Since he was up and moving, Jason and the nurse also gave him a complete sponge bath, changed out his hospital gown and his "no-no's" His "no-no's" are the covers that go over the IV's to protect him from pulling them out. Apparently they aren't Parker proof, though.

After waking up from his much needed nap, his day has gone much better. He is back to his old self, again. He has been awake most of the day, watching cartoons. He is coughing on his own without wincing in pain. This is a really good thing, because if he wouldn't cough up the secretions, he could be susceptible to pneumonia. He has had two stinky heinie's, which is amazing. A big concern with patients post surgery is Ileus. The anesthesia, along with the surgeon moving things around, usually causes the bowels to slow down, or "go to sleep". If they take too long to wake up, it will cause extreme constipation, which can obstruct the bowels altogether. Fortunately, Parker has been able to go on his own twice. His urine is looking much clearer, now. Hopefully his bladder is adjusting well to being used so frequently, and his body is accepting that the catheter may be there for a while. Finally, the team was able to remove the arterial line from his arm tonight. This was a huge plus! The arterial line was sutured into his hand and was used to have constant blood pressure monitors as well as access for lab draws. They have decided that since his blood pressures have been stable and labs are being reduced to once a day, that the line could come out. That's one less risk for infection, and now Parker has semi-access to his left hand. He still has an IV in it, but now he has a cloth "no-no", which allows him to move around and use his fingers a lot more than the big, bulky plastic one. We still have the central line in his neck, so we can use that to take labs from for now instead of sticking him every day. 

Over all today has been a really good day. The nurse has only had to give him one rescue dose of pain medication since this morning, which is a huge improvement from the last few days. The tantrum "episodes" have been fewer and farther between, but he is absolutely entitled to them. I am such a proud Momma! He has handled this entire situation much better than we could have ever expected. He is so resilient, and I only wish I were half as strong as he is.