2nd night post-op

Another fairly quiet day here at Advocate Children's Hospital, PSHU, bed 9.  Muriel again slept most of the day, but when awake much more alert.  Her chest tube drainage is *way* down.  Dr. Ilbawi mentioned we may remove one of them tomorrow.  The fluid is also very clear.  There seems to be no sign of the milky "Chyle" we were concerned with last week, though we will continue the no-fat diet anyway, just to be safe.  Literally *anything* we can do to avoid her accumulating fluid again we will be doing.

Muriel ate well this evening for the first time in several weeks.  We were able to get some chicken breast, rice, yogurt, and a (very) little bit of mashed potatoes to go down without coming back up, in addition to a very salty (!) bit of applesauce.  I tried to hide the sodium supplement in the mashed potatoes again, which worked last night, but she would have none of it tonight.  Why she would eat salty applesauce instead I have absolutely no idea.

She has become constipated again.  Poor nurse Sarah was again interrupted during her dinner (!) to utilize her, umm, small fingers for a task suited well for them.  That was successful, but we are now back on softeners to help out while her diuretics are up again.

Muriel got an "echo" (ultrasound) test today and all her plumbing was pronounced working in good order.  Dr. Sajan was very happy with it in fact.

All in all it was a good day, and I do believe we can say she has "turned the corner" - an actual quote from Dr. Sajan, who I don't believe would say such a thing without truly believing it.  I think we will start seeing a number of things shut down and removed tomorrow.

I realized just now that every picture of Muriel for the past several days, though cute, are all of her passed out.  We will endeavor to get a picture of her awake and post it tomorrow.  Sorry I haven't added many pictures to my posts lately.  My poor phone, which was inadvertently soaked in red wine several weeks ago, is really on its last legs.  Basically reliant on Megan's phone for pics, which is why you have seen her posting them lately.  Works for me.