Yay for Christmas Miracles!

It’s Christmas day and we’ve had a couple good days!

Yesterday, Kate got four tubes removed: her catheter, two nasal tubes, and her breathing tube! Kate is much more awake than previous days, too. These are pretty major step forward! The day was plenty challenging, with a lot of meds being changed and everything coming out. Kate was much more attentive and awake! Lots of unhappiness and pain for Kate. It was quite exciting for Audrey to get to hold Kate for the first time in 11 days though. Kate and Audrey both really enjoyed that. Kate then amazed us all and slept through the night!

Today, on Christmas, Kate got some meds decreased a bit, her respiratory support turned down, and the speed of her RVAD pump decreased for the first time. The RVAD speed going down is huge. Once that goes down, we get the big chest tubes out and can start the healing process in earnest. Dave got to hold Kate today too!

Kate still has at least one more surgery, possibly more, before we get to think about the going home process. When Kate is done with the RVAD, she will have to have another chest opening surgery to remove tubes and seal things up. That’s going to be another recovery period but hopefully it will be quicker.

All in all, we’re happy to see some forward progress on recovery. It’s a good Christmas present!