CV ICU Day # 5 - getting the ball rollin'

Today was a big day for little Elle. This morning they pulled out her last chest tube! Whoo hoo!! At 1:00pm they also took out her breathing tube. Another whoo hoo! Her poor voice is so hoarse - she sounds just awful but at least I got to hear her cry for the first time in 6 days. She also sounds extremely "junky" so they are monitoring that closely to be sure nothing settles in her chest. She is still getting antibiotics for pneumonia and this afternoon I walked in to her room to find all the doctors and nurses dressed in face masks and gowns in her room. They had to send her cultures for flu and RSV testing too so now any medical professional that enters our room has to have a mask on and put a gown on. We pray all those tests come back negative!! Elle is also on her way to being officially off all pain medicine and sedation meds. Unfortunately, we now have a little morphine addict on our hands! They are going to slowly ween her off the morphine by giving her methodone and adavan in decreasing doses until she is completely pain med free. She was horrible this afternoon. Not acting horrible - just out of it horrible and I didn't like it one bit. At one point this afternoon, the nurse gave her a dose of versed because her blood pressure was high. I'm guessing Elle has now built up a tolerance to these meds because it had an opposite reaction for her - it didn't calm her down - it hyped her up! Vickie and I were trying everything to calm her down! I talked to the nurse and asked her if it would be possible for me to hold her to try and calm her down. The nurse said yes! But before I could hold her, the line that was in her wrist had to come out. She also graduated from being strapped down. It was a huge night for Miss Elle! No more iv in her wrist and no more tie downs! I keep telling myself over and over again - one thing at a time...one thing at a time. Every little step is an amazing step towards being released! We also need to be praying for poop. Elle was given 2 laxatives today and nothing happened...so we definitely need to get her stomach and intestines working again! They may start feeding her tomorrow but we will just have to wait and see. Thank you for all your wonderful prayers. We're not in the clear yet, but your prayers certainly do lift us up!