Last night was a very long night for Harper. Her temperature spiked after her surgery, so the nurse came in hourly to check her vitals, give meds, etc.
Fortunately, her BP appears to be pretty well controlled at the moment. So, we've moved past that issue onto 2 more.
First, her temp. She was above 101 at least twice through the night. The concern is that she could be developing an infection. If she were, it would most likely be from incisions and surgery yesterday. That would be bad. So, monitoring her temp closely was very important.
Once they got a couple high temp readings, the next thing was to get some blood for a culture. Previously, when they wanted to get blood for a culture, they needed to do a stick. Day 2 they tried twice (with us physically restraining her) unsuccessfully. But, thanks to her brand-spankin' new central line, they were happy to pull the blood there, with no needles involved. The little miracles are often the best.
Once the decision was made to culture, they were willing to give her Tylenol - which dropped her fever fast.
The second new problem is her oxygenation. Her abdomen is now swollen from something beyond the tutors (though I'm pretty sure they continue to grow). The surgery yesterday is also causing swelling. So, it is getting harder and harder for her to breath. She doesn't have any airway restriction, per-se, but she can't breath deeply. Her diaphragm has nowhere to go.
So, also last night, they initiated her on oxygen through a nasal cannula. That, of course, further irritated her already dry nose (which had bled once already).
There were also 2 trips to the bathroom. The first was unsuccessful, but she went the second time. They'd had her on IV fluids (in both lumens of her central line) since the surgery concluded, so her little bladder was pretty full. But they had also put in a urinary catheter during the surgery (took it out before she woke up thankfully) so she was told it would sting when she peed. She then didn't want to pee.
Finally, around 5am, they came in for a chest X-ray. They brought the machine into the room, which was less disturbing, but it still was another wake up.
Then, the cherry on top. They had us move rooms this morning. We were in an overflow area, which was more quiet, but farther away from all the stuff (like the nourishment room and the family area) and required us to go through 2 secured doors to go to the main area and back. I'm thankful to be closer now, but it was another thing to disrupt.
The main reason they want us in the main area is that we should be starting chemo soon, so we need to be on this side of the floor.
Here's another uplifting photo - from a local gas station.
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