Post-op Day #3. 6/20/24

Well we got thrown a little bit of a curveball last night. They ran a respiratory panel on Braylee last night and turns out she has adenovirus and pertussis (whooping cough). She's vaccinated but apparently with these new super bugs that doesn't matter anymore. They started her on a z-pack antibiotic and the whole family gets to join. So not only is she recovering from a major surgery, she has to heal from this too. It's just not fair. She's doing good, doesn't really have the "whoop cough" so hopefully the antibiotics knock it down quickly. 

Her surgeon came bright and early and said she's looking great and just focus on getting nutrients in her. Sadly, she threw up again today so we had to stop feeds again. The dietician came and formulated a plan. She is now on a formula where the protein is already partially broken down so it won't take her body as long to get the nutrients from it. So if she gets sick she should have gotten most of the nutrients. About 45 minutes into the feed her stomach started to get upset again so we slowed it down and she lasted about another hour before we had to stop and take about an hour break. They decided to start giving her zofran (anti nausea meds) so it will hopefully help her stomach settle and keep her feeds down. 

I've been kind wondering if her stomach just doesn't tolerate the formula in general since this is her first time with a feeding tube and we've never had her stomach have this many problems post-op. Could just be wishful thinking that it is that easy of a fix. 

We moved her to taking all of her medicine by pills and she's doing fantastic with that. 

Her surgeon came back this afternoon and we asked about her eating orally and he said if she is feeling up for it then do it. She was able to eat about ⅓ of a gogurt. A huge step towards getting out of here!!  We also asked if she's allowed to suck because we had for some reason thought that she wasn't supposed to. He said yeah sucking won't hurt her but I don't know if she can. Well, we have been stopping her sucking as we gave her water through her syringe. So, it's no problem for her at all! This is going to help her drinking immensely! Usually the mouth piece that they use for this surgery is so big and bulky and takes up their entire mouth, they can't suck or eat very well. This custom made mouth piece is amazing! 

She has kept everything down the rest of the day and we hope that she continues that throughout the night. She played the Nintendo switch for a couple minutes today but she got worn out very quickly, but hey it's the most normalcy we've gotten out of her in 4 days so we'll take it. 

We still aren't sure when she'll get discharged. She just needs to find that one corner to turn and she'll find it, we just have to be patient.