Grace was released from the PICU today! She is exactly 3 months old today.
After such an operation, babies are normally kept in the PICU for 3 or 4 days. Grace was in for 7. At first it was because she went into pulmonary hypertension whenever the nurses handled her, and later her heart kept going in and out of a junctional rhythm, which meant she had to be connected up to the pacemaker. All of that had settled down by yesterday, so they observed her overnight and then released Grace and Aiden (the little boy in the bed next to her) into the high-dependence room of the Edgar Stephens cardiac ward.
Grace is able to take a small amount of milk from the bottle but gives up after a while, so the remainder is given to her via the feeding tube. It’s a huge relief to see her awake and alert, after spending so long drugged out. Most of the tubes and probes are now out, as well.
The Easter Bunny came around this morning, with an egg and a stuffed rabbit for every child in the hospital. The Starlight Foundation handed out little backpacks full of pencils, textas and colouring books a couple of days ago, too. I’m amazed at how well they look after the kids in this hospital!