This day is done

This afternoon they placed a feeding tube in his mouth.  It is not for feeding purposes, but to release gas from his stomach.  Then they did an abdominal x-ray to make sure the placement was correct, which it was.

We slightly brought him out of the heavy sedation and he was able to follow commands to wiggle his toes and squeeze my hand.  He was semi conscious for about 15 minutes then seemed pretty agitated and started showing signs of pain.  They gave him pain meds, then sedated him again.  He'll stay that way overnight.

I changed his device from the power cord to batteries so they could untangle the cords.  I set off an alarm, but found how to silence it.  I'll get faster with time.  They check his blood sugar levels every hour.  They turn him every two hours.

Dr Mokadam was in to see him several times and is pleased with the way John is responding.  His cardiologist, Dr Masri also came to visit.  Lots of people have been in to listen to the HeartMate III, it has a different sound than the previous versions, more like a pulse.  I should be selling tickets at the door to take a listen. 

I asked how much blood he received during surgery and was four plasma, two platelets, and one red blood cells.  His lungs seem to be clear.  His temperature was a bit high, so they just removed some of his blankets.

During the nurse hand off tonight I learned that he was defibrillated twice during surgery since his device was turned off.  It sounded like that was pretty common.  The Medtronic guy came in to restart his defibrillator/pacer this afternoon. 

It's been a long emotional day, I'll be heading home soon and will be posting more tomorrow morning.  Good Night!

Colleen