Day 29: Celebrate the Little Things.

On Susanne's way to visit with Paxton in the PICU today, she saw his "Good Luck" Care Bear in someone else's room as she was walking by. Her first thought was that someone must have taken it from Paxton's bedside thinking that it was hospital owned and used for patients in need of a pick me up. Her second thought was that someone had the same idea and bought it for their sick child. As Susanne walked into the room that Paxton had been in over the last two days, she quickly noticed that there was a toddler sized child in Paxton's bed. Susanne was really confused...some would say she was having a blonde moment. One of the nurses immediately informed her that her son had been moved to a private room, a.k.a. he got a sweet upgrade. The doctors felt like Paxton was stable enough that he did not need constant supervision from one specific nurse around the clock. He now had his own room. What a big boy!
Paxton's follow up chest x-rays looked better compared to yesterday. His collapsed lung lobe showed improvement and the fluid build up in his lungs decreased dramatically. Things were looking so good that he ended up having his chest tube removed overnight. The doctors main goal today was to continue to wean Paxton off of the ventilator and see if he could breathe well on his own. They also wanted to continue to monitor his bloodwork to assess his current respiratory acidosis, which is a condition that occurs when the lungs cannot remove all of the carbon dioxide the body produces. If things continued to improve like they had been, then the doctors felt confident that they might be able to extubate him by tomorrow. This was such great news.
Susanne felt like Paxton's facial swelling had improved significantly compared to yesterday. He looked so much better and was starting to look more like himself again. The nurses did have to replace his peripheral catheter because the one they had been using in his foot was not functional. The new catheter was placed in one of the vessels on his scalp. He has had one of these types of catheters before. They definitely look very scary and uncomfortable.
Later in the day, Susanne read People magazine and US Weekly to Paxton to make sure he was keeping up with the latest celebrity gossip. He seemed really interested in what she had to say. As the day progressed, Susanne realized how happy she was with the new set up. She got a nice comfortable chair that could turn into a bed if she ever wanted to stay the night with Paxton. Also, there was a TV and a radio in the room for their entertainment. She ended up getting dinner served to her which was such a nice suprise. The best part of it all was that Susanne got her own breast pump which allowed her to pump in his room without having to leave. This was so awesome because all of the other days she had to leave every two hours to go to the designated room for this which is now on a different floor.
All in all....today was a good day!

"Enjoy the little things in life... for one day you will look back and realize that they were the big things."

~ Robert Brault