Post-Op, made it through.

Jack is still a little weary each time we go to the hospital, thinking that we may be strapping him down to a bed again. Luckily, we didn't this time. His x-ray was crystal clear. We did draw some blood and it looks like he is low on potassium and sodium (despite ALL the Gatorade he has been pounding.) So we were given prescription for the same potassium medication we tried to give him in the hospital, that he threw up. So I was a bit skeptical about taking it home. But we bought some wild cherry flavoring to go with it. To help you understand what a difficulty this med is, imagine condensing down some super nasty sea water and try feeding a tablespoon of it to your 3-year old. 

Why is potassium so crucial? ...you may ask...

Well, if you have watched Boston Legal, Law and Order or have some really bad friends, you are familiar with lethal injection. Basically, what they are injecting is POTASSIUM, to STOP the heart. And counteractively, if you have too LITTLE potassium, it can have the same effect.

So, the "K" is kind of serious.

On a lighter note, we dropped one of the diuretics. That is good, because that particular one made him dizzy. And, we dropped a half-litre of O2. So we are back to the .5 that we were on before. The Cardiologist we saw (who isn't OUR normal cardiologist..) said that Jack's saturations were "ok". They were in the 74-77 range off of the O2, which is ok, but not what they want right now. So we'll stay on the O2 till our next visit, which is May 18th, when we see OUR cardiologist.

Also, if you remember, there is a hole in Jack's heart called a "fenestration" that they sewed to his fontan, that is sort of a "pop-off" for the new pressure flowing through his heart. Sometimes the fenestration closes on its own, sometimes a cath is needed to close it. Jack's heart is CHOOSING to pump the blood through the fenestration, and not the fontan. (The blood flows through the fontan, but the heart is PUMPING it through the hole, instead of PUMPING it through the new valve.) This isn't necessarily a bad thing...we'll just have to see what happens. And I'll get more answers from JACK'S Dr's.

So, all in all, he is doing well. Clear x-rays are wonderful. A kid that eats and drinks and doesn't have as sunken of eyes is wonderful.

We go back to Primary's on Monday for another blood draw. We'll see how that goes.