End of day 2

It was a day of changes on a lot of ways. After lunch we moved up to the cardiac ward. Before that could happen, several lines had to be removed and certain drugs weaned off. We also started the anticoagulant regime that will become the new normal for supporting the mechanical valve in Nate's heart. I'm not sure what the at home drug will be, but here at the hospital, it comes on the form of an injection. Poor, sweet Nate. More ouches.

He had a tough day with so many of the physical things happening to him were a bit painful and hard. From removing dressings and lines, to now having to take many meds orally instead of through his line (and they sure don't make them the way our amazing pharmacy back home does...if they did it sure wouldn't be an issue., but these just taste bad,) and then there was the attempted blood draw (again because his arterial line had to come out). Two techs BOTH tried ( and by tried, I mean dug around) on BOTH arms to get a vein, but could not. That was a lot of owies for Nate and was hard to see. He is struggling with pain from his chest tube, as is to be very expected. I'm praying that it can come out tomorrow. So far he has an aversion to most every food, but at least is drinking. Since the continuous morphine was stopped in ICU, the Tylenol and Advil aren't cutting the pain, as he's had two doses of morphine since coming up here this afternoon.

So, a tough day, but a day that you have to get through to get to the healing that is coming. And we are assured of that. It's just the hardest thing, though, to see your little boy suffer in these ways. And I just long for my Nate to come back to the silly, goofy and spontaneous hugging little boy that I know.

It's crazy though. It's only been two days. All things considered, he is making good progress. And I'm thankful for the many, many answers to prayer already. Here's one that I bet you didn't know about: for our 'previous extended experience' at The Stollery when Nate was 2, I realized how important it was to have a room with a view. Once our miserably long stay in the ICU and ICE units were done and we got to the cardiac ward, our room had a view to the outside. There were construction zones, a train transit system and busy roads to look at. It was amazing what that will do for a young boy who loves those things. So, it was definitely a prayer of mine that we'd have a room that didn't just look into the hospitals atrium, but one would give us all the fun city life and action. Well, we got it. And as soon as Nate can actually get out of bed, I'm sure he'll be enjoying the view, too!!