Day 3 Post-Op - Coming Along Nicely

Today has been a good day so far.  Nick's dad and sister got into town last night and have been visiting, which is nice.  My mama went home today with promises to visit soon.

Little Cora continues to amaze us.  She's still eating all her feeds easily and with gusto and is in much better spirits today.  Another great perk we've noticed is that her reflux seems to be gone.  She's no longer coughing, gagging, choking and retching during her feeds and throughout the day.  I certainly didn't think that it was associated with her heart, but here we are.  So that's another thing to be thankful for.

And while I am sitting here, Cora has been treating her Daddy to some big smiles, the first that have graced her face since the surgery.

The last of her chest tubes and pacemaker wires came out today, as well as her foot IV (since it was leaking) so all she has now is the O2 and her central line.  Her respiration and heart rate are being monitored still and they're periodically checking O2 levels.  Later today they'll test her O2 again by turning off the oxygen and seeing how she does.  Hopefully she'll stay at 92 or above, which she hasn't done yet.  But she's on a really low level of oxygen and the nurses think she'll probably be ready to be off soon.  Getting her O2 levels can be tricky since she's so squirmy, which often makes it hard to get a good reading, so I'm hoping that we don't get stuck here due to inaccurate readings.

Since that seems to be the last reason we're still here, we're hoping that she can conquer that too.  It will just be so nice to get her home.  Her doctor said that Monday was the likely discharge day, but we've started to hope for Sunday instead.  We should probably not try to get our hopes up, because either way we should be going home soon.

But the hospital stay has been great overall.  I'm sure much of my appreciation stems from the fact that Cora is doing so well, but it's really been pretty great, especially since we've essentially been here since Monday (if you include the pre-op day before we checked in).  We've been lucky to have wonderful friends bring us dinners every night, so we're not eating hospital food all the time.  And the hospital stay is so much less traumatic when you're prepared for it.  The NICU was so tough, since it wasn't expected and we never knew how long she'd be there, and they didn't have facilities for parents to regularly stay overnight.  It's been nice that we can be here with her.  Although Nick has done a couple of errand runs home, I've been here the whole time.  I did stay in the Cool Bus with my mom last night though.  Thank you to Nick for sleeping on the cot and taking care of Miss Cora during the night time hours.

There hasn't been a lot of drama today.  It's been nice for us, but probably doesn't make for very riveting reading.  But that's OK by me.  I'm looking forward to our lives getting a lot less dramatic in the very near future.  I just can't wait to snuggle up in my bed with my baby for a couple of days and have a perfectly boring and lovely time.  It's so exciting that I should get to do it soon!