Carter's Personality

Things are slowly getting back to normal. His feeds are back to 35 ml/hour since he figured out that he can use his diaper. :)

I should tell a story as Carter was preparing to leave the PICU yesterday. Kristi got to his room about 9:00 a.m. and Carter was not happy. He was arching his back, crying and his heart rate was just above 200, which is too high. Kristi came in and put her hand under his head and consoled him and he calmed down rather quickly. His heart rate got back down around 140 within 30-45 minutes which was good.

Our family has discovered some of Carter's personalities. One, he doesn't like blankets, sheets or anything over his legs. He sleeps in a onesie. The nurses try to cover his legs and he kicks the blanket off.

He also favors the right side of his head and will likely get a plastic helmet to "round out" his round head. We, the PTs and the nursing staff have tried many tricks to get his head to be centered or to lay on his left side but he wriggles his way to his back and places his head on the right side every time.

One other one is that he doesn't like tubes in his face (who would?) so he leverages his fingers and hands to get his feeding tube and canula off his face (as we've shown in earlier posts). The nurses have his tubes taped pretty well to prevent against eager fingers and in the PICU his hands were gently restrained from going to his face. he could move them towards his tummy or sides but they were prevented from finding his face (and tubes.)

I'm sure there are more as we find them.

Kristi mentioned that today they likely will pull out his chest drain and Pacer wires. The chest drain simply evacuates excess liquid under his heart. The Pacer wires are connected to his heart so that if he develops an irregular heartbeat, they can get it back in sync. His heart has neen extremely stable since the surgery except for the small firing issue from a couple posts ago.

He is awake sometimes and is on Loritab for pain. The morphiene is no longer used on him since he left PICU. They will transition him over to Tylenol for pain in the next 24-36 hours.

It is amazing how fast he is recovering.

Thank you for your thought and prayers on Carter's behalf. We truly appreciate them and your friendship.

Love,
Alan & Kristi