recovery day 2

This picture is the first time I got to hold Owen after the surgery! I didn't realize how much I missed having him in my arms. We are still in the ICU here. Our nurse had just taken Owen off two machines and she let me hold him as soon as possible. (even thought she joked about wanting to be the first one to hold him) Oh man, I just soaked it in and Kenny snapped away with the camera. The second day in the ICU revealed much progress for Owen. He started coming off the machines and got a visit from Dr. Smith, his surgeon. Dr. Smith was so pleased with his progress and told the nurse that if Owen starts eating well, we could possibly leave the next day! We had fed him about two ounces of milk in a bottle that morning and he did great. He didn't eat anything else until the afternoon when they let me try and nurse. That went smoothly also which was even more encouraging! By the time we left the ICU at about 3:00pm, Owen only had one IV in his foot. We wheeled him to his new room and our nurse, who fell in love with our sweet boy, said goodbye.

Here are some pictures from our room on the third floor. These were taken the evening that we moved. This room was much more private (the ICU room had all windows on one wall for monitoring) and we were looking forward to getting some sleep! We could even turn all the lights off and make it dark! Our visitors left after dinner, and we decided to just relax and maybe watch some tv.

This picture was taken after a small incident with Owen's IV. Owen started to get a bit fussy and the nurse came in to redo his IV bandages. After she left, he just continued to cry. After a few minutes we noticed that his toes looked discolored and his leg below his knee was swollen and tender. Immediately, we called the nurse again....and then again. She finally got to the room just a few minutes later and quickly pulled the IV out. The reason it happened was that he was still getting fluid from the IV when he didn't need too since he was eating so well. Whew! I will admit, it was a bit traumatic for us and poor Owen. We just held him for awhile afterwards and, as you can see, Owen didn't let go of his daddy's shirt for quite some time.

That evening, the swelling really started to be noticeable.

It was ironic because Owen started looking less like himself, but began acting more like himself.

We actually got a little bit of rest that night. Yay!