Thursday Update 5:30pm

Well folks, seems Henry got bored with the CCU nurses and decided to visit the cuties in CICU. Again. He's back to his stompin' grounds from when he was a coupla days old.

Overnight, Hank brady'd often all night. Several significant pauses in his already-lower heart rate. Three and four second pauses. Enough to alert the staff and keep an even closer eye on him. These brady episodes tend to primarily, if not almost exclusively, happen while he is sleeping. Quite rarely is he bradying while awake. In fact, i cannot recall ever seeing it. I do not have monitors at home, but i'm familiar with how he looks when he does it, and i've only ever seen it when he's sleeping.

When i first got there today at 11:30 this morning, he was resting peacefully in his jungle swing, and the monitor did its very distinct BEEPS AND BOOPS when something is happening with Henry that is alarming. Not just a yellow light, per se - a RED light. I was, in fact, typing to Ron on FaceBook about Hank bradying so frequently when a nurse, the resident and the cardiologist on call all came in and told me that he just had a 9 second pause in his heart beat. She showed me the paper - it didn't even fit on one page.

Two pages of flat-line.

That's a little scary to SEE. It's also a little scary to think that he could be doing that at home, off monitors, and i would never know. If i were there to see it happen, i'd shake him a little, and he'd snap out of it, but if i were asleep... well... er... um.

So it was with that pause that it was decided to move him to the Intensive Care Unit down the hall. Closer watching of such bradys, as well as more equipped for dealing with it should it get more serious.

To somewhat reiterate the last post, everyone who's anyone is putting their heads together to decide the best next course of action for Henry. There are several options, which i've mentioned already. Now they have tossed out the possibility (not PROBABILITY - a difference) of placement of a pacemaker. A pacemaker can be set to detect a pause in the heart beat and will automatically "jump start" the heart to continue beating on course. This does not seem to be an immediate solution. It's down the ranks a bit...

Easy-to-Understand diagram of a Nissen procedure

I imagine in the next day or two, we will see one of the following happen (perhaps in this order - let's see if i'm right when it happens...) 1) installing a G-J tube - a feeding tube that bypasses the stomach and goes right into the intestines, 2) a stomach nissen: In this operation, the top of the stomach is wrapped around the lower esophagus in order to create a greater length in the lower esophagus and a smaller diameter. This follows a law of physics called the law of Laplace, which states that a smaller tube is more difficult to distend than a larger tube. <-- i got all that from online, of course, but i think it's easy to understand.

G-J (or Jejunal - aka, into the intestine) tube.
Other notations on the device: Gastric=belly * Bal=Balloon, blown up right behind
the abdominal wall inside, that keeps the 'button' from coming out of his belly.

... oh i don't know. I'm keeping in close communication with everyone involved and i understand completely what they are considering. I trust the crew. I like being in the loop so if I'm not at RMH, i'm at Henry's bedside. I can really tell that he knows i'm there. They had to get another vein today and it was really obvious that my presence mattered, which made me feel good. Henry was looking at me the whole time and ALMOST fell asleep while they were poking and prodding him. Another nurse-y tidbit: just because a vein is found and an IV inserted, doesn't mean the vein can't collapse or start 'failing.' Especially with teeny tiny baby veins like Henry's. If you can get the vein to last a few days, you're doing good. And now the thing with Henry is, a lot of his vein have been "blown," which means they've already been used and have failed and need time to heal, so they cannot be used right now. So when they DO find a vein, its a big to-do.

My lil guy is hanging in there, and he likes to grip my fingers TIGHT! I love looking into his eyes and giving him pep talks. I THINK THEY'RE WORKING.

... More to come...