Fever, arrhythmia, and other regular post-op stuff

Lots of medicine

First of all, Riley looks pink and we can see freckles on his nose that we’ve never noticed before because of his coloring. That is cool. His toes are pink, his fingernail beds are pink. His torso, arms and legs are a creamy color and not a reddish color. His lips—that are mainly occluded with tape from the ventilator—are pink. It’s crazy awesome.

There are some things we are worried about only because we have such a traumatic history with him post-operatively. He has a fever. It is 38.7 degree C now; it was 39 degrees C when I went home after midnight; the nurse said it should be 35 or 36 degrees. At least it’s moving in the right direction. Fingers crossed. He’s on top of a “cool pad” to help bring it down.

He's pink!

He is having a bit of an abnormal heart rhythm called an arrhythmia. The nurse said it’s been going on since early this morning and they are called PACs (premature atrial contractions). We are leery of them because after his Fontan, Riley had arrhythmias that became life threatening.

His left arm is also somewhat swollen. He has a history with thrombosis or clotting after his fourth or fifth surgery and we’ll be keeping a close eye on it and mentioning it to the doctors when they appear for “rounds” to discuss Riley’s case.

Other stuff: he was on by-pass for 378 minutes and should be completely ventilated until tomorrow at the earliest. They typically keep the kids on the vent for 24-48 hours and Riley should be closer to 48 just because he came into the unit so late at night. 

All in all, given the length and complexity of his surgery, he's doing really well.