Continued Progress

Bryan said Ayden had a great night. They both got a lot of sleep, which I was encouraged to hear since the two previous nights were so terrible. Rest is essential for recovery, but it is difficult to come by in a hospital.

Ayden obviously feels better; he is smiling a lot more often, and he is enjoying his toys. The Halloween parade brought Ayden a stuffed animal panda yesterday, so I washed it last night. His nurse, Ginny, showed his new toy to him, and he was very fascinated. We could not have entertained him with the panda yesterday, so I was happy to see him interested in playtime again.

Ayden's chest x-ray showed some improvement. It has been difficult to appreciate the progress day-to-day. Ayden's resident, Brian, showed me x-ray shots from readmittance, and I can definitely see the improvement in both lungs. Brian also explained to me the process of weaning from IV diuretics to PO diuretics (by mouth, or in Ayden's case, per tube), and I was very fascinated by the physiological aspects. They hope to have him on full PO diuretics by tomorrow, so they can then begin determining Ayden's home regiment. (As a side note, the resident team currently on 6C has been fantastic; we are sad to see them move on to a different area of the hospital on Monday.)

Ayden's blood and urine cultures have still not grown anything, so they took him off antibiotics. Knowing Ayden probably does not have an infection is a huge relief.

I know that we are, most likely, getting closer to going home, but Bryan and I try not to have expectations. We try hard to balance hope and realism. We want Ayden to be stable and capable before we try to take him home again.