Back to square one...

On Tuesday I noticed that Lily's incision looked like it was starting to get a little red, I brought this to their attention and they said they would look at it again the next day to see if it got any worse.  Later in the day I felt it looked worse and told the nurse, who reassured me they'd be looking at it the next day blah blah blah so I had to start being persistent because I didn't feel it was ok that it was getting worse and it seemed Ike no one thought it was an issue.  In the afternoon her incision started to bleed a bit and later some CV doctors came to have a look and when they opened the dressing the scab came off and pus was coming out. (gross i know)  I had her call in a dr to come and look at it.  One of the cardiologists came and agreed we should get her on some anti biotics which took hours to come up!

Yesterday I felt it was getting worse even on the antibiotics and again the CV drs came to look a couple times and tried to milk it to see if they could get any more out of it which they did.  I can't imagine how painful that would've been for her, I had a hard time just watching.  I  think Lily did extremely well. Over the last couple of days she had become very protective of that area.  By late afternoon the top area of her incision and the tissue around it was starting to swell and we were told she might have to go into the OR to have it surgically debrided.  They started her NPO just in case she went in last night but then took off the order and said if they do it, it would be in the morning.  She later had a bit of a fever and the CV dr came by yet again to look and then talked to the surgeon.  He wanted to do it wednesday night but she had eaten so he felt it would be safer to wait until the morning.

I had Justin come up wednesday after work incase she went into the OR.  So glad to have my partner back with me.  It's been hard to be away from him, don't get me wrong we have had wonderful support but its just not the same as your spouse.  Lily was sooo happy Justin was there.  She was saying the cutest things and the faces she was making were priceless and melted my heart!

Lily went in first thing this morning 7am.  We went for a stretcher ride and I got dressed up again to take her in.  They were able to initially sedate her with the PIC line as I held her tight and told her how much I loved her and that I would see her when she wakes up.  I've said it before its so hard taking her in those rooms because she remembers and gets scared.

The plan was to open up the incision and clean it out hoping that it was just superficial and not into the bone, they were also hoping they wouldn't have to take out the wire that was holding the sternum closed.

I am writing this as we wait for her to come out of the OR.  Her surgeon just came out and told us that they cleaned it out, it had started to get into the bone so they did have to open up the breastbone again.  He finds it very unusual that an infection would flare up like this so far post op.  I am just heart broken for her that she has had to go through this again and have the pain levels right back where they used to be after surgery the first time.

She is now awake and sipping water, she will hopefully come out of the PICU later today.  Hopefully with this infection out she will start to feel better really soon!