OHS Recovery: Day 5

Claire is doing great, there isn't much new to report.  Most everything that she's going through now is considered normal post surgery!

She is still losing weight so we are, again, playing around with her "calorie cocktail." She is having more trouble with swallowing than before surgery - this could be due to some swelling in the vocal cords because of the insertion and removal of the breathing tube or some more serious damage to the laryngeal (vocal cord) nerve is a possible complication from her surgery as it runs very close to the heart. A speech therapist came by yesterday and is concerned that she isn't even handling her saliva well (in terms of swallowing and aspiration). We are limiting her pacifier time and only allowing it when she's on her side and with a good head position for swallowing and I'm supposed to try to not let her get upset as she's not able to safely manage the extra swallowing that is required during and after crying. Hopefully it's just swelling and this will improve in a very short time.

We even got to take her off the monitors for 30 minutes yesterday to take a trip to the playroom with Big Brother <3!

Playing with brother in the playroom



 

Claire's nurse, Jenny