Post surgery update

Drew is doing better than we had expected this soon after surgery. His carbon dioxide levels are remaining normal or close to it as are his ph levels. The respiration rate on his vent has been dropped from 60 (highest) to 40 and the oxygen setting is at 35%. He's maintaining everything well at those levels. His potassium was a bit high this morning so they are adjusting some things to work that issue out. Right now, it's just a question of finding the right settings for his various meds and machines.

They stopped the paralyzing meds this morning so he will be slowly waking up today. He'll still be heavily sedated but about to open his eyes and move a little bit. His left chest tube is draining a TON. Now that his organs aren't there, there's a fairly large space around his little lung and it seems to just keep filling with fluid. That's something they are watching and might have to do something about down the line.

His catheter had been removed yesterday and we were hoping that his urine output would be good enough to keep it out but it's back in today. His output isn't that great right now and they are trying some things to get him to pee before going back to lasix and albumin. His kidneys can become dependant on the medicine and we really don't want that to happen so for now, they are just pushing some saline.

His color is coming back today; he was so, so pale yesterday. All in all, he's really impressed me by doing so well so soon after such a major surgery. This is by no means the end of his struggles though, it's really only the beginning and things can still turn bad very quickly. I can't stress the seriousness of his condition enough--I don't think that many people truly understand the tightrope he's walking or what he's facing.