Out of surgery, in ICU out of ICU...

Busy couple of days!

It has been really hard to get to the computer. And it seems when I finally have time to go update, so does every other parent in the hospital.

Kaelyn came out of surgery yesterday around 2 pm. Dr. Healey evacuated a lot of fluid from her abdomen, including a pocket that looked like it had bile in it. He hopes that area stays dry, if it begins to fill again she might have some sort of leak in her common bile duct. He also cleaned out the blood clots in her abdomen. He could not see any active bleeding, which is good. He closed her muscle layer and let only the skin and fatty tissue layer open. So she is just about fully closed. She only has about an inch wide would, but it stretches across her whole belly. I think she will feel much better with her muscle layer closed.

She was transfered to the ICU after surgery just to watch her overnight to be cautious. She was in a lot of pain and the ICU resident on last night would not increase her morphine drips, he was afraid of compromising her airway. It was a long night. But this morning after rounds her transplant team was a little upset that the ICU folks let her go through so much last night and quickly increased her drips. She felt better after a few hours on the higher does and is resting comfortably right now. We are currently back on the surgical unit out of the noisy ICU (yeah!).

Dr. Healey took her off of her heparine drip two nights ago in preperation for surgery yesterday. So far she is doing well off of it and has not had anymore problems with bleeding (Dr. Healey believes that is why she was bleeing, the heparine). She has had two ultrasound since surgery and her Hepatic arteries Right and left has some flow. So that is good, off heparine with flow. Healey is going to keep her off of her heparine for now since things look okay in there. He believes that as soon as the post-op swelling goes down that we should see even better flow.

She is going to get a blood transusion tonight, her hematocrit is down to 22. So that should help her feel better. And hopefully tomorrow after a good night's rest with the right dose of pain meds she should feel much better.

Love,

Angie