Another Good Days Progress

Today was another good day for Connor's recovery. Following the doctors rounds this morning it was decided to remove the Left Atrium (LA) (Ithink) line and the two sets of pacing wires. Despite not using the pacing wires from the ventricles, they were still connected and come clean out of the chest in two spots.

So we now sit with only monitoring of respiratory rate, oxygen saturation and heart rate on a continual basis and blood pressure on a certain numer of hours basis. We are up to 80% on the fluid restriction. In reality our only concern now is that something new pops up or the temperature that has been lingering in the mid 37 degrees is more than just a temperature because of surgery. We have been told we could be discharged as early as tomorrow however I cannot see how we can do such when we would need to reside in an apartment interstate until Wednesday as that is the earliest the airline will accept a patient post surgery.Regardless we still haven't had the wound accessed ie uncovered, he hasn't had a shower yet and has only had four walks so isn't exactly stable as yet. Additionally we don't have all the equipment on hand as we would at home. Last time this happened he got really sick and ended up straight in hospital in Adelaide with a partially collapsed lung. I suspect Monday minimum would be more likely given he is still on continuous monitoring, the wound aspect etc. It was probably more a throw away line by the doctor not recalling exactly where we were at.

Anyway it is still very positive and despite a contradiction in terms of the earliest flight time ie our hospital in Adelaide who organise the flights say Tuesday would be the earliest we could fly because they count surgery as Day 1 where as Melbourne are saying Wednesday (Christmas Eve) is the earliest we can fly as they count surgery as day 0 and say the airlines minimum is seven days post surgery. Can't we get any consistency anywhere? Either way we are currently on track to scrape home to have Santa visit Adelaide rather than Melbourne. Just hope he drags back the suitcase full of goodies that I have a fair idea is in Melbourne just just in case (everyone knows Santa comes where ever you are so we couldn't afford to take a punt that everything would go well with the timing and it is no certainty yet as anyone who has been involved with heart surgery or other major surgery would understand).