Tripp had his surgery three weeks ago today to connect his esophagus and stomach. Surgery went well, recovery.. not so much. Its been a long three weeks. The first couple of days he did alright after surgery. Then things went terribly bad. He was on the vent and his carbon dioxide (CO2) started going up and he would desat to the point they would have to bag him with oxygen and he would still be turning bluish-grey. So they would make adjustments to the vent, he would be good, and then his CO2 would start creeping up again. Then on top of this, he ended up with fluid building up in his chest and an air pocket. They added another chest tube close to where the first one is, so he has two now, and that seemed to help some. Then they got clogged because the drainage was so thick. Because of that, they had to change out the tubes. This helped some. During all of this, they decided the surgical site must have a leak, which would explain the air pocket and super thick drainage. After a few days of fighting this and his ever rising CO2 levels, they put him on the ocillator. I never wanted to see that machine again, because all I remember of it is shaking my 2lb baby's body to death. Amazingly enough, it doesn't have the same effect on a 5lb baby, there's more of him there, so it didn't shake him anywhere like it did the first time he was on it. This seemed to do the trick at first, and then the CO2 levels started creeping up again.. luckily they tried a few adjustments and FINALLY found the right one.. After almost a week of steadily going down and getting bad news every day, things started to slowly start getting better. It was bad and to the point I was starting to have anxiety just waiting on hold when I would call to check on throughout the day.. I just kept thinking "ok, what else bad can they tell me today?" And no, this probably did not help my anxiety at all. A big part was I felt guilty for putting him through this surgery.. It wasn't supposed to make him get so sick, it was supposed to make him better. But thankfully, after he turned that corner, he's been making progress every day. Right now, he's on very minimal vent settings and they're doing a barium swallow on Friday to see if the leak has healed and what's going on with it. We're praying it will be healed up so they can take him off the vent and hopefully remove his chest tubes. Then we'll be able to hold him again. We haven't held him in 3 weeks.. I miss feeling my baby in my arms..
On a happy note, I had my baby shower this past weekend thrown by my awesome friend, Whitney! My family and lots of friends came to celebrate with us and we received a bunch of gifts for Mr. Tripp! His room is almost complete now. Just have to organize some stuff, get his clothes, blankets, and sheets washed up and we'll be all ready for him! I hope he likes his room. Whitney and I got the stickers put up on his wall this weekend as well. I might be biased, but it looks pretty darn good!
Thank you to all of our friends and family who have stuck by us through this tough time.. I don't know what we would do without your support and prayers! And I'm so thankful to God, for taking care of our precious little boy.. if it weren't for Him, I don't believe Tripp would still be with us.
