We are back
on Ocean Ward again – Jessica has had her cardiac catheter procedure and all
has gone well. All the nurses on the
ward have commented on how much Jessica has grown since we were last here (five
months ago – what a lovely long time we have had at home between hospital
stays!) and how well Jessica looks. She
has been such a brave girl throughout the whole thing – other than being a bit
unhappy about having bloods taken yesterday (not a fun process in spite of the
magic cream) and feeling quite sorry for herself after coming out of theatre today
(not too surprising!) she has mostly been her usual happy self. Now that she is a big girl, she even has a
sticker chart which is gradually filling up due to all the different tests that
she has needed to undergo.
Other than
all the tests needed in preparation for today’s catheter, Jessica spent
yesterday quite happily playing with toys on a floor mat near her cot and
giving all the nurses and Sue, the chaplain, big smiles when they came in. We were second on the list this morning although
were a little later getting to theatre than anticipated so lots of distraction
was needed to take Jessica’s mind off the fact that she was not able to have
any breakfast.
The
catheter was being performed by Dr Wilson (the doctor who did Jessica’s very
first operation before she was born). It
was a long wait whilst Jessica was in theatre – four hours in total, mostly due
to the fact that there were difficulties getting the catheter into the veins,
particularly the veins in Jessica’s neck which means that she now looks a little
like she has been attacked by vampires, bless her! There was some narrowing in her pulmonary
arteries and aorta which has been ballooned and this should help improve the
blood flow in these areas. Jessica was a
little bit wheezy when she first came out of theatre as she has a little bit of
a cold but this improved soon after she arrived back on the ward.
Jessica has
been recovering well – within minutes of getting back to the ward, she made it
clear that she was hungry and then proceeded to make up for the missed feeds by
having a lovely long feed from Mummy followed by a big bottle of
Infatrini! She got another certificate
for being a brave girl and has mostly spent the evening snuggling up to Mummy
and Daddy as she is understandably not quite as happy as she was this
morning! She has needed a little bit of
oxygen to help boost her saturation levels whilst she is recovering but
hopefully by morning she will be back to just breathing air again.
Thank you
to everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers – hopefully all being
well, we will be able to go home again tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment