Out of PICU

Sorry for the absence of an update yesterday--we both had hit a wall and just couldn't muster the energy to log on. Zoe is still doing better and better. We were released out of the PICU yesterday evening and are now, finally, on the surgical recovery floor. Next stop, home.

As you read, two days ago Zoe was finally extubated in the morning. While it was a great thing to finally have happen, it was a very long day for us. She wasn't allowed to nurse until she showed signs of returning to her "normal" self. She was sluggish and out of it all day. If they really made us wait until she was her normal self, we'd still be waiting now. A doc finally agreed that she was at least alert enough to nurse. It took her about a minute to remember her nursing technique--and then she was her voracious little self.

She continues to be alert, but still is not really herself. She lies in the bed, or in my arms, in a dopey state. She acts more like a newborn in her "not quite all there"ness. She is very floppy when we pick her up--she acts as though her arms are too heavy for her to move.

In our growing concern about this (is she brain damaged???) we asked the neurosurgical and plastics teams whether this was normal. They assured us that it was. The drugs she was given while being on the ventilator for a week leave the body slowly. They said to expect that it could take two or three weeks for her to get back to her recognizeable self.

They are still very happy with her progress. The latest CT scan yesterday showed that her brain was still holding steady. There is some fluid retention on the right temporal side, but on the outside of the skull. The area of hypodensity is unchanged.

The main concern for now is that she developed quite a large blood clot in the lateral iliac vein in her left groin area where they had placed the central line. They can't put her on blood thinners yet to deal with it as she is still too recently a surgery patient. The word is that it's not an acute danger to her, that her body will deal with it by redirecting blood to the capillaries around it and working to absorb the clot on its own. We are waiting to see a hemotologist to see what they want to do on an intervention level.

In our new hospital room (Giraffe 3010) we have a bathroom that we are allowed to use (we had to take a hike down the hall in the PICU and then pass through security to return to the room everytime we needed to relieve ourselves), we can eat in the room (couldn't in PICU), and we can have our cell phones on. Nicer to be less controlled, but ultimately we just want to go home!

While it was told to us that going home today might be a possibility, with how methodical they are around here, I won't be surprised if we have to spend another night.