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Post op day 8

What a busy, traumatic day for poor Abs!  She was awoken at 6 am by the plastic surgeon residents removing her dressing (not very gently!). Then she had a repeat ultrasound of the blood clot in the arm that took over an hour and wasn't overly comfy because they had to look at the deep veins.  The clot is still there, but I haven't heard anything about what they want to do about it.  I expect that I will hear tomorrow during rounds.

A little after the ultrasound, her plastic surgeon checked her back and noticed a bit of skin breakdown from the special stabilizing sutures he put in, so he took them out. Her incision was cleaned and rebandaged.

Abby hasn't been able to "go" since before her first surgery, despite quite a few interventions. They pulled out the big guns today, resulting in a painful hour or so!

PT came soon after that, and Abby was able to walk to short distance across the hall to the playroom--albeit screaming and crying!  She had just gotten settled down playing with a toy when the phlebotomist came to draw some blood!!  So she had to turn right around and go back to her room, which went over very well as you can imagine. The blood draw took 2 tries and lots of digging, so she was wiped out by the time it was done. 

In between all of the torture, she did manage to have a 3 hour sprint off of the bipap in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon before the blood draw knocked her out.  I asked to take her off again this evening after she woke up, so she's been off for another 1.5 hours to get to her 6 hours sprinting off of bipap.

The weaning has been going a little slower than we had hoped because she is so very tired.  Being off, even though she is just sitting, absolutely exhausts her.  I try to hard to keep her awake, but she just nods off!  It's not very easy to take her anywhere right now because she is on continuous monitoring, but I know it would help if she could be more active.  I'm working on it!  I did manage to entice her to play with play dough for a while!  She's also really enjoying having the Meet Felicity (from American Girl) read to her.  There are a bunch of them in the family library, so I think they will help to pass the time and keep her mind active.

 

She's working so hard!  This girl has gone through so much this admission and I know she's just done.  

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