Road to Recovery

Every step of this process has seemed like the hardest, but walking in and seeing Conner hooked up to more lines and tubes than I could count was probably the most overwhelming step so far.  He is still heavily sedated, and will be until tomorrow, but looks comfortable - if you can be comfortable with three main lines, three IV's, breathing tube, catheter, chest drain tubes, etc.

The main thing they are watching right now is the gradient between upper and lower blood pressures, and keeping the pressure down to give the graft a chance to heal a bit before working at capacity.  They will monitor him through the night, and then make a decision around 6am when to start waking him up.  I am actually nervous for this.  Conner has a sensory aversion which makes even a small band-aid a traumatic experience.  So...I am nervous for him to wake up and see the MANY things connected to him.  They assure me he will still have plenty of meds to keep him comfortable and relaxed, but I cannot help but worry.  Especially since every nurse that peeks in to check and see if Conner's nurse needs any assistance says, "oh, he had a clamshell????"  And, of course, they say it in a way that makes me nervous.  A clamshell incision is the largest type of incision used on the chest, commonly used for heart and/or lung transplants. Instead of going vertically along the sternum, it goes across the chest horizontally and curves around his side.  A clamshell incision is more painful, takes longer to heal, and sometimes makes the process of getting them to breath again on their own a longer one - because deep breaths are really hard and painful.  But, they still anticipate the breathing tube will come out sometime tomorrow.  Conner needed this type of incision because the location of the graft was on his left side, and a midline incision would not have given them the access they needed to the side.  We have been told by several people that his progress will be measured by how many tubes they can remove...and while I of course want to start removing them, I am also nervous about the process.