Team Travis: Monday update 11/30/2009

Monday, November 30, 2009

Monday update 11/30/2009

I thought I'd change it up a little bit for tonight's update.

Pros:

He got his Trans Thoracic Line Off. This means we can hold him more.
He got his stitches from his drainage tubes off.
He is off all drips except for 1 maintenance drip for his PICC line.
We had a coupon for Babies R'us that expired today and bought him some cute clothes.
He is eating 10-12 ml of milk during his feeds through the bottle. (See Cons)
His vocal chords sound fine, ask anyone in a 20 yard range.
His diaphram also looks good, but they are keeping an eye on it.

Cons:

He is getting 28-30 ml of milk through his NG tube.
He had some puking today, so he got a new medicine. (Prilosac)
He has a little liquid around his lungs. Keeping an eye on this.
Every patient comes back from heart surgery with a Pacemaker attached. Some babies are dependent and some are not. Travis' wasn't even on until Saturday. We found out today that they turned it on in the event that his heart rate dropped too low. When Travis sleeps, coughs, and sneezes there are tiny moments when his heart rate drops below 100. They turned on the pacemaker because of this. They do not seem too concerned, they think it may just be his normal resting heart rate. The idea of it scares us.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Travis Gary DiCarlo

Travis Gary DiCarlo, first son of Roger and Nicole DiCarlo, was born at San Diego Kaiser Hospital, October 23, 2009 with a Congenital Heart Defect known as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, or HLHS. The short explanation is that Travis was born with only half of a heart. In order for him to live, a series of three operations were planned.

Due to an infection, Travis had to have an additional open heart surgery to insert pulmonary artery bands on October 29, 2009. He had his Norwood Surgery on November 21, 2009. He was sent home on December 14, 2009 from Rady's Children Hospital of San Diego after spending his first 52 nights of life in the hospital.

After being home for several months, Travis was due to for his next surgery in the plan, the Glenn procedure. But the life of a cardiac kid can change in an instant and life doesn't always go as planned. Due to the anatomy of his heart and some rhythm issues, Travis had what the surgeons called Norwood part 2. They replaced his Sano Shunt with a bigger one, enlarged his pulmonary arteries and installed a pacemaker. This surgery was performed on May 3, 2010. Travis went home on May 17th, 2010.

Around Travis' first birthday in October his cardiologist detected some narrowing in his pulmonary artery and ordered a heart cath. The heart cath showed extensive narrowing in his aorta and his pulmonary artery. On February 17, 2011 Travis had his 4th open heart surgery. He was doing well with recovery until he suddenly went into cardiac arrest on Friday (2/18). After two hours of CPR Travis was placed on ECMO (a heart/lung bypass). Although his heart did begin to beat again on its own, his brain was damaged during the whole ordeal and he lost all brain function. We had to say goodbye to our beautiful boy on Saturday, February 19th. We miss our boy terribly.....