Our Little Trooper

Since the patient rooms are not very sleep friendly for the parents in the CV-ICU, they have a few sleep rooms on the floor. We were drawn for a sleep room last night, so we got some good rest. And after the day Trent had yesterday, we all needed rest.
They knew what they were talking about when they said it would be the worst day. Trent was in a lot of pain for most of the day. The nurses and doctors kept adding more and more meds to try and keep on top of his pain management. Nothing worked. He would get a good dose of meds and drift off to sleep for about an hour, then he would wake up writhing in pain. We felt so bad for him...and would have taken the pain times ten for him if we could have. He was pitiful. The nurse at one point made the comment that she had given him enough pain medication to knock out a small calf...and it wasn't touching his pain. It either eventually caught up to him, or he wore himself out crying because all of a sudden around 6pm, he finally went down for a long resting period. As I mentioned before, we had a sleep room...so around midnight we left his room to go get some sleep. When we arrived back to his room this morning, I think someone had switched our child out for another one. Before we could even make it into his room, the nurse met us in the hall and told us how much he loved our child. He said that Trent was the best baby all night. He had rested very well.

Over the course of the day today, they have been able to uncover his incision, remove a main IV, remove his chest tube, remove a line that was going into his heart to measure the pressure, and take him down from all of his IV medication drips. He is now taking the majority of his medicines (which are very few) orally. They also moved him from CV-ICU to progressive care this afternoon.

Trent is such a little trooper. He was even able to muster up a smile for us today, which is something we had not seen since very early in the morning Wednesday. Our little man came here that morning just as happy as could be...and he is a morning person for sure. Then, up until this afternoon, we had seen no signs of happiness out of our little guy. We shouted with joy as we saw that little glimmer of a small smile across our boy's face. It is something that we took for granted for so long. Today, that little smile brought back feelings of joy that were similar to the day he was born.

We've had a few small bumps in the road today. However, compared to yesterday, we will gladly take those minor setbacks.

Again, the love and support we have experienced from everyone here as well as at home is overwhelming. We cannot thank all of you enough. We cannot thank God enough for keeping his hand on our little boy. God has something big in store for this young man.

We are enjoying our time this evening just sitting in his room watching him sleep...with his gator and his taggie blanket. He is just as content as he can be. My heart skips a beat.

Again, with huge love for a small heart -
Wayne and Holly