Post-Fontan recovery: Day 7 (Ocean Ward)

Jessica had another good day yesterday. She spent several hours out of bed sitting in the chair and had lots of fun doing some painting and sticking with the play worker and playing with playdough. She looked quite tired out in the chair after a couple of hours but was quite insistent on staying there for as long as possible!

One of her chest drains is still draining a reasonable amount of fluid but the other one was only draining very small amounts and was removed yesterday. Jessica was given some midazolam just before her chest drain was taken out to help sedate her a little and make her more comfortable for this. She slept for most of the day after that which made up for a fairly restless night the night before! There doesn’t appear to be any chyle draining from the chest drains so hopefully we have managed to avoid chylothorax this time around!



Jessica’s weight this morning has decreased a little so the diuretics are working well. Her breathing seems much more comfortable than it was a couple of days ago although she is still a bit breathless. The plan for today is to have more time out in the chair playing and doing arts and crafts and to try to reduce her oxygen requirements a little.