Post-Op Appointment

Olivia had her post-Glenn follow up at Hope yesterday, while they are typically non-eventful appointments to just get a quick once over regarding the incision, we had a little bit of a hiccup last Friday.  I was at the office on a conference call when I saw Brian calling in.  At first I didn't give it a second thought because I assumed he needed me to pick up something on my way home.  Then an email popped up with the title "Olivia's Chest" and a picture attached, my first thought "Uh oh".  I open up the attachment to find her chest with a red area at the base of her incision like a silver dollar.  I can't tell you the words that ran through my head after that.  The call ended, I squared up things at the office and took off paging Dr. Husayni and Gia to see what they thought we should do. 

In the meantime, Brian was feverishly getting everything around the house together so that we could take off in a minute's notice if necessary.  I get home and still no return calls from my pages - hmm this is unusual.  I called the Heart Institute and was re-routed to one of Dr. Ilbawi's Nurse Practitioners and explained the situation.  I mentioned that we had pictures that we could email and she was ecstatic.  Getting directly to the point - I ended up having to scrub up, remove all of the Steri-Strips and then wash her whole incision with warm soap and water (which she absolutely refused to let us do even a few short days before).  As a precaution they called in an antibiotic to fight off any infection that may have been starting.  Everything else was completely normal, Olivia had been eating like a horse taking 4.5oz every 2.5 hours, no fever and overall pleasant disposition.  So we were lucky no trip to Hope - however the staff was very honest in the event that anything changed over the weekend or leading up to the post-op appointment they may keep admit her for IV antibiotics. 

By Sunday it was clear that the antibiotics were doing their job and all the redness was going away.  Yesterday it was a confirmed infection, but Nurse Carrie said things look great and her sternum has healed wonderfully.  Apparently they see this type of incision infection relatively often.  It was only at the base of her incision which is the end of the disolvable sutures.  They put in a fairly large knot to tie things up and that takes quite a while to disolve and sometimes the body rejects it altogether.  While at the appointment, she was weighed 13 1/2 lbs, length 25 3/4", SATS 94%!!!!  Things are looking wonderful and we could not be happier.  In other heart baby news Jonah and his parents were able to go home on Monday and we are so excited for them.  Hopefully Olivia and Jonah will be able to have a baby date sometime in the near future.