We are successfully getting a teeny bit of food into her and plan to run it throughout the night at just 20mls/hr. If this goes well, maybe in the morning we can make an increase to a larger amount. Normally, Aimee gets boluses at 225mls/hr of food aside from her other fluids, so we have a lot of work to do to get her back on track. However, just like with her last surgery, if we can get her to take a reasonable percentage of food even continuously fed through the day, we will be able to work on this progress from home. It took us about 3 weeks to get her taking full calories last time and we are not going to hang around here for that long! :)
Pain management is also a huge area that we have to be sure we have the right plan for at home. Aimee has big incisions from neck to mid back and from mid back to pelvis. She has 12 screws, including some 3” long into her pelvis, aside from the 2 rod implants and other pieces. And her muscles are fighting to put her body back in the position that they know as normal. She is going to have a long recovery for sure from this huge surgery. Just getting her to sit in her wheelchair for the ride home is going to be a big hurdle.
Lastly, we need to settle the output of fluids while making sure to also keep an appropriate amount moving out. We don’t want to make her endure the drive home, only to have to bring her back for fluids!
Tomorrow we will meet again with the surgery team and hope to have a clearer view of what happens next.
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