Day 7

3:47:00 PM Atticus Army 0 Comments

Hey army,

It is just crazy to me that it was only 1 week ago that we found out that our little bug had a ginormous tumor.  I seems quite surreal for Emilie and I, and for us at least the world has seamed to completely stop turning.  We have been so so grateful for all of the amazing support we have had both from family and friends.  It was a very odd experience last night when I finally pulled out my school planner that I generally look at religiously and realized that my first exam is one week from tomorrow.  Somehow it doesn't carry as much weight, or nervousness as it did before, I guess it is true what they say, " Everything is a matter of perspective."

So Yesterday, sorry I sat down just barley to start writing what happened today, and then I realized that I never ended up finishing yesterday's events.


Yesterday was a pretty exciting day.  Atticus did uh well ok over night after his surgery, he did not like the intubation tube at all.  He woke up several times kind of gagging on his tube and wanting to sit up.  He had to have some extra medication about every 2 hours to help keep him calm.  we felt so bad for the little guy.  We just kept hoping that it would be able to come out sometime today.  However, it is possible that it can be in for several days.  We will see!!

Morning finally came and we were informed at around 2 or 3 in the morning that Neurology wanted to get their post surgery MRI to see how his little brain was reacting to the surgery.  If you think about it immediately after surgery there is more or less a big hold in the center of his brain.  Often times after a brain tumor removal the brain somewhat collapses and fills the void where the tumor was.  The hope is that as the brain continues to produce CSF (cerebral spinal fluid) it will absorb it and fill out where it should.  However, it isn't always the case.  I like to think of it like a sponge.  When you first get a sponge it readily expands and fills with water.  If you compress it for a short time it bounces right back match the rest of the sponge.  If you compress it for a long time, it somewhat loses that plasticity and when the pressure is released it has a difficult time bouncing back, and sometimes it doesn't quite work. So fingers crossed his brain is just waiting to go right back!!

After returning from his MRI we found that his right arm was VERY puffy.  We felt so bad for him, we ended up chalking it up to what is called dependent edema, or in other word the fluid follows gravity and gets swollen.  After his surgery, understandably so, they kept him quite sedate both for his safety and comfort.  His arm was down below him all night and so jump forward 24 hours we got a puffy arm.  Luckily the 2 IV catheters in that arm were ok so we were able to scratch that off the list right away as the cause.  In spite of the intact catheters the ICU staff determined that we should pull them both out to stop it from getting any worse.

Atticus, bless his little heart, has the WORST veins in the entire worlds to place a catheter.  Which is why they were so hesitant to remove them in the first place.  So after quite a few attempts in his other arm and both feet we determined that we would have to just try it later today if extubation happens.  Atticus was able to get a decent nap in after all the IV catheter excitement which we were very grateful.

They let us know during his nap that sometime around 3pm we would be able to take out his tube!! This was such great news.  Not only does this mean that Atticus will feel much better and hopefully be able to sleep better, it means that he is stable and recovering very nicely, so much so that he can breath all on his own.  So over the next few hours we slowly turn the amount of oxygen he was getting down to room levels, and allowed him to start breathing all by his lonesome.   So Happy Day!!  3 O' Clock rolls around and in comes the team to remove his breathing tube, if you remember there was one other important thing that had to happen first.  It was time for some more IV catheter fun.  This time at lease he was partial sedated, which made it much more tolerable but that did not in any way, shape, or form help with getting the catheter in.  Honestly I just really think that the rest of his body is just as feisty as Atticus is and all the veins got together and went on strike.  After an exhaustive effort, an IV placement light, and an ultrasound we get one in, and we will protect it with out lives the rest of the time until we get a PICC  (peripherally inserted central catheter) line in hopefully tomorrow or the next day.

Unfortunately, because of all the sedation we had to give him for the IV, we needed to wait for a bit to take his breathing tube out.  6 O' clock finally rolled around and he was awake enough to get it out.  When a baby finally starts to wake up and looks at you and tries to cry but can't..... it's the saddest thing in the world.  Atticus has very expressive facial cues, and there was no doubt on what he was telling us.  I think it most likely went something like this," Look it Mom, I think I might cry a lit..... wait whats this?!? I can't make a sound... (cough,cough), ok I'm panicking, what the heck is this, I can't make any sounds....."  then came the look that could only mean...... "DAD, you did this to me didn't you.  At least his panic didn't last to long, and the tube was out in a a jiffy.  He did such a great job and was excited to see his Dad.  His Mom stepped out of the room during this excitement, but he asked for her immediately so I ran and grabbed her and all was well in the world.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we mainly just took care of atticus, watch Finding Nemo several more times, and waited for the Neuro team to make their rounds and discuss the findings of the MRI he had that morning.  Sometime around 2 or so we had a member of the neuro team come to check up on us and said that the surgeons would be by later to show us the MRI.  Fast forward to 8 pm and still no sign.  The previous lady did mention that everything looked just as they would have expected for a post surgery MRI so we weren't to worried, but we still very much wanted to see it.  By the time 10 pm rolled around we decided that they weren't coming and got ready for bed.  Hopefully tonight is much better than last night. ☺