Day 2 - ICU and Floor - 2014

ICU

We woke up still in the ICU which was the plan, hopefully be out in the afternoon.  Sarah was feeling pretty good, and had some decent sleep.  Judi came back from the hotel around 8 a.m., and she got some sleep which is good, I did not get too much on the ICU padded bench/bed thing.

Dr. Emani 'blessing' Sarah for a great recovery before he
goes to work on another patient.

I left to go to the hotel to get showered and changed, so took my morning mile walk to the Marriott up on Beacon.  Good walk, but a bit far.  When I got back they had Sarah out of the bed, in a chair - wow...  4 of her 5 IVs were out and she was in a chair sitting up!  What you can miss if you step away for an hour.  They got her working this morning and think they will pull the dreaded chest tube before we leave ICU - this is good, as ICU can be more liberal with their meds to help make the chest tube removal a bit less painful - still gonna hurt.  Dr. Emani stopped by to check on her before his morning surgery and thought all looked great.

Soon they determined that it would be a good time to remove the chest tube.  I started to sweat and become that bully parent that is demanding they pump Sarah with whatever meds she needs so she does not need to endure the barbaric procedure.  They try to talk some sense into me, that it just hurts, and they can give her some additional morphine and sedative to help, but, suck it up dad... your kid is going to have some pain, but will be short lived.

They got Sarah some more meds and came in to do the procedure.  It is not fun to watch, none-the-less be the poor kid on the receiving end (can only imagine).  I contemplated just leaving since I was not feeling up for it, but I wanted to be there for her.  Judi stood by her, and me behind the bed.  After so little sleep and the emotions and stress of such a surgery, you can't take seeing any more pain to your child - I was not dealing with this very well.  Minutes later, they we basically done, it was out, Sarah was in a lot of pain, but was OK.  Few quick stitches, and she was chest tube free!!  She cracked a little smile through her tears, and I cried a bit too...  I was happy, mad, sad, everything, but it was over, PHEW!!

That was the biggest hurdle to getting out of ICU, and we got our orders to move to the Floor!  Word is there are 11 new private rooms and most the original rooms are privates too - cross our fingers we get a private!!

Move to the Floor

At around 2pm we got shipped out of ICU to the floor.  This was exciting and Sarah seemed upbeat about getting out of ICU.  We got to our room, 830, and it was a private (yes!) room on the corner of the building with two big windows overlooking the city (on the 8th floor).  We all just felt so relaxed getting in here a, and Sarah was much happier.  Things were moving along pretty quickly, so that made us all feel good.

Sarah in her new private room sipping a yogurt drink, smiling...

Sarah's view of Boston - not too bad!

The day wrapped up with just some rest, pain management, and a little walk around the floor hallway.  This was great for her to get accomplished.  We just read, talked, and tried to relax - not much else to do.  I would leave at night to head to the hotel and get some sleep, and Judi stayed with Sarah over the night.