Post Op - Day 3

Michael has been cruising along with his recovery, he has been so blessed and so strong. He is back on  a feeding tube today, he is just not eating enough. I think he is supposed to be drinking like 90ml per feeding and he is only taking about 20ml. He also seems to just be a bit lazy when it comes to feeding, he just expects it to go down his throat by itself.  We haven't tried breast feeding yet because his respiration is still a bit fast. The doctor said he is probably breathing fast because his throat is soar from the breathing tubes. She also said one of the reasons he might not be eating is because of the arch they repaired. Before the repair, the blood going to all the organs was restricted by a kink in the arch. So now that it's fixed the belly is getting more blood and needs to get used to it. This video is actually of him 'eating' the night before surgery. So you can see he wasn't really into it then either.

His respiration is fluctuating quite a bit and freaking us both out a little, his alarms are starting to ding again... man I hate alarms. I am happy to have the surgery part over with, but now we have to see how he reacts to each thing they take him off. This morning he was taken off his brain and kidney tissue monitors, and he was also taken off the last of his cardiac medicines. That could be causing the faster respiration, but we kind of just have to see how he stabilizes.
It's kind of crazy how all this works, I like to think of the surgeons as mechanics, and the heart as their engine. Things are supposed to pump and flow a certain way and they just try to make it work like it was originally designed by our almighty engineer. But then there is this whole other element, of the individual growth and unique structure.  I just want some definite answers, but it does not like work like that. The answer to every question is "We'll just have to see how he does.." We understand they don't know how he will grow, but it is hard to always be in that waiting stage.
We just got through sitting in on his rounds for this morning, He does still have a slight heart murmur,but the doctors say that we shouldn't worry about that until he is bigger. They said he will most likely need another surgery in the future, but they will have to wait and see how he grows. We are really hoping it will just correct itself as he grows. He is off all of his cardiac medicine, but after rounds and talking to the cardiologist they are probably going to put him back on some if it after his echo today.  They are also concerned about his vocal cords and the fact that he is not eating as much as he should. He is probably going to be examined by an ENT later to see if he has some vocal cord damage, I guess that is the main thing that could be affecting his swallowing. We get to go over his post-op echo today or tomorrow and hopefully get a little more info about the future.
This is getting easier to deal with as the days go by, but when you have to backtrack even a little bit, it gets a little freaky again, and then there are these stinkin alarms!