Keeping him cool

When we left Josiah last night his sats were in the 60s.  After we left they gave him muscle relaxant and they shot up to the 70s.  They tried to wake him a couple of times in the night (just by not giving him muscle relaxant) but he didn't tolerate it (i.e. his sats were too low, etc.).

When I arrived this morning there were a lot of people around his bed.  I saw that his sats were 51.  Apparently they had just dropped.  They were able to give him more muscle relaxant and other drugs and his sats rose to the 60s and 70s.  He was trying to do some breathing on his own so they changed some settings on the ventilator as they want the ventilator to do all the work in order to decrease the work of his heart.  Right now all of his numbers look good except for his heart rate which is high.  They are putting something under him to cool his body down to try to decrease his heart rate.  They want to keep his temperature in the 36s.  He'll be kept muscle relaxed for the weekend so I may not see him awake for a while.   

I asked the nurse if all of these issues can be attributed to the fact that the pressures in his lungs were so high before the surgery.  She said that most of it can.  Josiah has been used to having tons of pressure in his lungs so he now needs to get used to the new pressures.  She likened it to how someone would feel when doing a 10km run and being very stiff and tight from all the lactic acid build up - it would take some time to loosen up.   

One of our previous posts was a little confusing.  The surgeon did not attempt to fix the issue with Josiah's main heart valve but the results of this surgery should ease the load on this valve.  

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support.

Blessings,

Elizabeth