Cori Lou Where Are You in the NICU Day 3
This evening Cori Lou is getting a PICC line. (This link explains a PICC line very well.) Cori Lou is already on her fourth IV relocation, so you can see why this might be easier on her little body with surgery tomorrow and probably a couple more weeks of intravenous feedings. The same surgeon will be doing this procedure. She says this is done for infants a lot and she personally has done hundreds of them without any complications.
Cori Lou had another ultrasound today, specifically to see if her aortic region was healthy. That looked good. The report on the kidneys and brain was good.
The red light glowing on Cori Lou is keeping track of how much oxygen is in her blood. Her levels have been consistently high.
Heidi and Rich signed all the scary consents this evening for the surgery tomorrow. It looks like the “official” time slot is 10:40 AM now, but as said before, is subject to adjustment. The surgical procedure is expected to take about 2 hours, but the recovery time adds another 2-3 hours to her isolation. No one will be allowed to see Cori Lou until the doctors have seen x-ray verification that everything looks right. So, Heidi and Rich may not hear anything for most of the day.
It may be shocking to see Cori Lou after surgery. She will be on a ventilator because her lungs will not be able to keep breathing on their own with the new abdominal contents putting pressure on the diaphragm and lungs (based on past cases). They will try to wean her off of the respiratory support as quickly as they can, because they know that having it longer than necessary weakens the body’s ability to breath on it’s own, too. She won’t be able to begin any eating by mouth until she is free of the ventilator, then they will have to monitor how her digestive system is handling the new work load.
Heidi is having much less trouble with the spinal headaches and it looks like she will be discharged tomorrow, later in the day. Her plans are to try to stay rested so that when they are allowed to see Cori Lou, she will be up to it. She is storing up lots of colostrum and milk to have on hand when Cori Lou is ready for it. Heidi will also be talking to the lactation specialists about what to expect for nursing times when Cori Lou is still in the hospital.