October 16, 2009

One day post-op and Charlotte seems to be coming around

She came off the ventilator at 4:00 today and picked up right where she left off on the regular cannula (25% O2).

However she started to have some frequent episodes of extremely low heart rate and desaturation called brachycardia ("brady"). Prior to today her last brady was October 8 and overall she has had relatively few of them.

The doctors and nurses have discussed numerous possibilities ranging from infection to low hematocrit (red blood cells). After a blood gas analysis showed her hematocrit is increasing and her white blood cells are at a reasonable level it was decided that for now her instability is probably related to coming off of the anesthesia from the eye surgery and possibly post-op pain. Regardless, they will be watching her closely.