Not much has happened over the past few days. Andrew has slowly and steadily improved. There is even talk of going home soon!
The chest tube drainage has slowed to almost nothing, but what does drain is very milky so he is leaking fats from his lymphatic system. They are going to pull the chest tubes today and see what happens. The nice thing is that the oxygen also gets to go with the chest tubes. Our little boy will be free from all of his tubes!
The coumadin has been restarted and so far, without disastrous results. Everyone is still confused by what happened last week with the crazy high INR readings. They gave him 0.5mg last night (same as the dose last week) and his INR this morning was only 1.4 which is not high enough (2 is the goal). Therefore, we will get a dose tonight and recheck the INR tomorrow morning.
If his chest x-ray is good in the morning and his INR is not way high, there is a good chance of being home by tomorrow evening. We are not banking on it because the minute you plan it, something will happen. In fact, we never say the word “home” in the ICU because it jinxes everything. Therefore, we continue to take it day by day and see what tomorrow holds.
The plan for today is to pull the tubes and then get out of our room and the unit. The intensivist (ICU doctor) is encouraging us to take him outside. There is a beautiful rooftop garden on the 3rd floor, so we will go explore that later today. They also encouraged us to take him to eat in the cafeteria, even if only for a snack. We have explored the new hospital, but Andrew has not had that opportunity. He does enjoy walking the unit and peeking in each room. We thought he was looking for new girlfriends but his intentions are more self-serving. He wants to check out what everyone is watching on tv to see if its better than what is on in his room. He has become quite the couch potato!
Again, thank you for all of the support. We are all doing well and excited to be a family under one roof. We will post as things happen, so watch here and the twitter feed on the side!
