October 27th: update

After they removed the excess fluid from the left side of Ben's chest, he improved quite a bit. He was stable enough to proceed with the next surgery to close his abdomen more. They did this procedure and removed one of the 2 drains in his abdomen that were placed to remove excess fluid from the abdominal cavity after the surgery last Thursday. After the procedure today, he was doing well at recovering, but then had several episodes where he has desaturated (his oxygen sats went down). His nurse, Tracy, and the doctors have been watching over him very closely and we are very lucky they know him so well so they can adjust quickly to the signals he is giving us to let us know when something isn't quite right. They have repeated 2 more chest x-rays today and have made some vent changes...decreasing his rate and increasing the pressure a bit... and he's required more suctioning, which initially he doesn't like, but he is starting to settle in again to his norm. Again he has proven to us just how strong he is...he's so amazing. (Also, Ben opened his eyes just after surgery today, I will try to add that picture tonight).