CAUTION........Picture Posted!

It's 10pm and we're back at the hometel, the Residence Inn has been great to us and so has Children's Hospital.

Brycen had a great day. All 3 chest tubes were removed as was his catheter and dialysis tube. He looks MUCH better this evening than he did this morning. Once the swelling goes down he's really going to look good. He continues to be responsive to our voices and has a death grip when we put a finger in his left hand. It looks very possible that we could try and take the ventilator off tomorrow. God is truly busy answering all of our prayers. He has done so well that we have decided to post of picture of him after he had the tubes removed. It as at the bottom of this post (hopefully I can leave some space so that you don't have to view it unless you want to, but here is your caution).

Our request tonight is that in your prayers for Brycen you please include his friend Caden. Caden is from Jackson, MS and had the same type of coarctation that Brycen had. Caden and Brycen were in surgery at the exact same time Monday, in fact they were the only two heart surgeries on. Unfortunately, Caden started bleeding in his brain today and is suffering from seizures. He truly is in need of God's awesome work.

We appreciate all you all have done!!!!!! (Picture follows)

You can see the little "patches" just below the scar. Each of those was where a tube was.

Update 5:30

The chest tubes have been taken out and a few blood pressure meds have been stopped. Brycen looks like a new kid without most of the tubes and wires. He is doing great. The next 8 hours are crucial as to how he will adjust without the tubes. Then they will look at taking him off the ventilator in the next few days.

We can't say it enough, but we thank you all sooooo much for all the prayers and supports. Lets keep 'em going!

Update 11:30

Brycen is definitely a fighter. They have had to give him a slight bit of morphine because he's wanting to wake up a little too much. I just went back there to see him and his grip on our finger is getting stronger and stronger. As I leaned down to kiss him he opened his eye for about 3 seconds. I kissed him again and his lips make a smacking sound. It's moments like these that are keeping us marching on. Sometime this afternoon, they nurse practitioner will remove his chest tubes. I will update when we see him after that. Hopefully before too long he will look good enough that we can post some pictures. We have held off on that since we've been in CVICU because the tubes and wires are very hard to look at. It won't be long and he'll be looking great.

Morning Update 8:30

We just arrived at the hospital and went to see Brycen before we sat down. He had a great night and is having a good morning. They are more than likely remove all of his chest tubes today!! This will leave him on just the ventilator and with just a couple of IV's. That is great news to start the day!

We hope you all have a great day as well, and remember....God gave it to you!

Tuesday Wrap Up 9:30pm

We are back at the hotel for the night. Brycen has had a pretty darn good day for a little guy that just went through such a traumatic surgery.

Last night and this morning, our concern was his blood pressure and blood gases as both were too low. He was given medicine to help control both and the medicine has slowly but surly started to work. Hour by hour, with each visit we had he started looking better and better. In fact once you get past all the tubes and wires he looks alright. He's got quite a bit of swelling in his face, especially his eyes, but that is expected. His fluid intake to output ratio last night was +250ml. This afternoon it was dead even. Tonight they expect to be in the negative range and that will start to take the swelling away.

The most surprising thing right now is that he keeps trying to overpower the ventilator. Earlier today the doctor and nurse didn't really want this happening, I think because of his blood gas levels, so they had to sedate him just a tad. But as the day went on, he still kept overpowering it. So they are going to let him "try it out tonight" and see just how much he can do on his own. He's not off of the vent, but it will do a lot less for him. This is starting to make him cranky, but that's actually what we want to see for a day or so. Then we know he's totally responsive and starting to wake up for us!

It's been a pretty good turnaround from 24 hours ago. Especially when the nurse that he had last night came over to his bed tonight while we were there and said "I really thought today was going to be a very tough day for him, it didn't look very good last night." That is promising news, and our hope and prayers will be that the next 24 are just as good.

We are off to bed. I will post tomorrow morning once we get a few visits in. Check in around the 10:00 hour unless you hear from someone on the "update posted" text message tree.

Once again, we can't thank you enough for all everyone has done for us. The prayers are working wonders and the gifts and visits are all greatly appreciated!!!!

Update 4:10

I just got back from another visit with Brycen. Long story short, Brycen is doing so well that mom has gone out to buy some needed supplies from the local Target (dad thinks this is more "retail therapy" related). He keeps looking better hour by hour. Blood pressure is back to normal and blood gases are "ok" now. If the progress continues we may get to take out some chest tubes in the next day or so.

There is a shift change at 7 and he is supposed to get the same nurse tonight that he had last night. We can't wait to see what nurse Daryl has to say about the improvement since he saw him at the worst time.

I'll keep you posted probably around the 9 or 10 o'clock time frame.

CVICU UPDATE 2:20

We arrived at 8 this morning and Brycen was starting to get back to "normal" (for CV patients) with his blood pressure and gases. We have gone back once an hour since then and he continues to improve with each visit. On our first visit back he recognized Christy's voice right away and started trying to move his head and arms. He is now recognizing both of our voices and is starting to kick slightly when he hears us. His nurse told us that while we were gone for lunch they had to give him more morphine to keep him sedated. The reason is because he started over powering the ventilator and was trying to breathe on his own. We need him to do that, just not quite yet :)

So far, so good. We still have a critical afternoon and night ahead, but if the trend continues things are looking up. I will try to update more often now. I was able to connect to wireless here in the waiting room.

Don't forget to praise God in someway today!