Post Fontan OHSU PICU Day 4 & 5

Up and walking around the unit with PTOT & a visit with healing K9's!

Good day all,

Steele is looking more like himself in the past couple of days. His voice is still very raspy along with a lot of fluid on his lungs. Respiratory Therapy is stopping by 4/day to encourage coughing, deep breathing, and tapping on upper body to get more oxygen in his lungs. The lungs are a key component to helping his single ventricle move the blood and assist with overall circulation. It's got to be really painful for him to cough, breath, and swallow with a huge incision in his sternum. 

This morning Rachel made a compelling case to his team to put him on a 6 hour round the clock Ativan dose. Ativan helps ease your anxiety and general stress, which works really well for Steele. When we were down at Lucille Packard, he was able to recover from heart failure along with swift recovery from the Glen surgery because Ativan was on board to give him some peace of mind during his stay and surgery recovery. It took several weeks for us to ween him off the medication, but well worth the investment. 

Currently his oxygen saturation is holding in the 90% range, heart rate & blood pressure look good, but the pacing wire is still hooked up. We have been told that there is a slight chance for a pacemaker, but not likely. The conduit between the upper and lower chambers of his single ventricle are getting better synchronization, it just takes time. Steele has always been a good healer, so we are confident in his physiology to take care of itself.

Steele took a stroll around the unit this morning with some assistance from the staff. He did one lap on his own and visited with some K9 lab mixes ranging in age from 2 months to 2 years of age. The one thing about our hospital stay during the holidays is there is plenty of festivity abound filled with cheer.

All in all, he's doing great...thanks to all who are sending Steele cool art pictures and signed posters for his recovery.

Thanks Mona Matthews and CrossFit Woodstock

Steele's Cousin's Holden and Santiago along with Ryleigh's entire second grade class artwork