Winter Wonderland

Hello,
Braden's recovery has still been pretty smooth. He got his central line out today......this was placed in his left shoulder and was running to his Glenn site. It sounds like his art line will be taken out tonight. He's off of all of his IV meds except for the ibuprofen for the headaches and a bit of glucose to keep him hydrated. He continues to eat, so they'll probably cap his IV later today. If there's a bed available and if things are continuing to progress, he'll probably head to the 4th floor tomorrow. He still has his chest tubes in, but he can move to the intermediate floor with these still in. His middle chest tube is done draining, but his pleural chest tubes are still draining a bit. Hopefully tomorrow the chest tubes can come out, so he's a little more comfortable. He's still on a liter of O2, and they will start to ween him off of the oxygen once the chest tubes come out. Rich and I have been holding him in shifts as this is where he is most comfortable and is able to sleep the most :-)

Rich and I are holding up pretty well. Although it was harder this time to let him go, it feels a little less stressful now that we know the routine and most of the hospital lingo involved.

I'm thinking most of you are reading this from home as mother nature has helped shut down most of Southeastern WI and Northern Illinois. RMH has served yet another purpose :-) We could barely get out of the RMH parking lot to get across the street this morning.

Thanks for checking in. We will try to post later today/tonight with another update.
Thanks for continuing to surround us with your prayers and positive thoughts.
Love,
Steph