Pass the Peace Pipe

  

Braden's recovery is going a bit on the slow side.  He has what some of the doctors and nurses here think is "undiagnosed" asthma.  He's had what I thought was a on-going cough due to seasonal allergies, but there's a rattle in his lungs and the right side was a bit "diminished" this morning.  Dr Genung, the in-hospital pediatrician, ordered breathing treatments every 4 hours, starting a few hours before the surgery--a couple of days ago, and they've been continued since then.  The nebulizing treatments are easy enough...and they've been  followed up with a vibrating machine that they run across his chest for 10 minutes or so...to help break up the congestion in his lungs.  The tube blows out smoke as he breathes in and we've nicknamed it the "peace pipe". 

 

 

Braden seems to be pretty sensitive to the regimen of hard painkillers.  He's a puker.  They've added an anti-nausea medication to his regular line-up and put a patch behind his ear.  So far, so good...but he hasn't eaten a thing today.  He was getting pretty dehydrated and incurring a lot of sediment in his Foley bag.  His catheter was getting very painful and so they had to go through several irrigation processes till he finally got comfortable again.  That's the only time I've seen him cry since we've been here.  They are also starting to wean down his relief hits from the epidural and are getting him ready to have that removed tomorrow.  Physical therapy came to see him this morning and got him out of bed.  He did pretty good until he wanted to go to sleep.  Dad left him an XBOX controller near his bedside and he sent a message home on the Live feed.  I was getting ready to leave the house and this is what came across the TV from Braden.

Hilarious!!  No doubt Mr Swag himself didn't have his thinking cap on straight...but at least his phonetics are working.  He'll have one more easy day and then it's going to be working harder on getting out of the bed and working the newly positioned hip.

 

We had some dear family friends, the Barrows',  drop by today and they brought him an awesome remote control toy that climbs walls!  Braden slept through most of their visit, but the rest of us enjoyed them immensely :)  As he gets to feeling better, I'm sure that Braden will be more than ready to drive that fun toy up and down a few walls between naps.

 

But for now and until his breathing gets better...his playdate is with the pipe every few hours.