In better spirits, and sitting up

Hi all,

First, thanks for all of your love and support. It has meant a lot to us.

Riley continues to improve day-by-day. His oxygen saturation levels have been in the high 70s and low 80s for the past two days and he is completely off oxygen. He is off the insulin. As mentioned before, he has a chylous leak, which is causing a lot of lymph fluid to gather in his chest below one of his lungs. It's not life threatening, but it is very frustrating in that it will keep us in the hospital longer than planned and it is preventing him from eating or drinking anything. As his overall condition improves, that's becoming harder and harder for him to
understand.

His spirits were improved yesterday, we got a few smiles and even a giggle. He continues to get morphine regularly for the pain, but the dosage doesn't completely knock him out. We are hoping to be moved to the special care unit today where the nurse to patient ratio is 3:1 (as opposed to the PICU's 1:1). At that time the intracardiac line should come out (line directly into his right atrium).

In the meantime, here are some photos pre- and post-operative through yesterday. You can see his condition improving. NOTE: if you're squeamish around scar tissue or chest tubes, please beware.