Dade had a rough night last night. I really don't know how to explain what that means other than to say that his heart rate was jumping around in ways that it hasn't before. This in turn threw off some of his other numbers like his blood gas concentrations, and forced the nurses to make some adjustments to his ECMO machine to get him comfy. Another thing Dade has been dealing with this week is fluid hanging out in his chest cavity. His surgeon, Dr. Anderson, has tried a few more conservative approaches to rid him of the fluid this week to no avail, so after a little ultrasound exploration, Dade got a new, second chest tube this morning to help out. The second chest tube pulled off a noticeable amount of fluid. We'll see how much this helps his overall lung function improve, but it certainly didn't hurt anything to get the fluid out! There's a second pocket of fluid that his first chest tube is meant to address, but that pocket is thicker, more gelatinous stuff that isn't flowing out of the tube. The intent is for this stuff to thin on its own and move on.
Dade is doing relatively well on the ECMO machine. He's been on fairly low settings all week (i.e. getting low assistance from it), but the docs and nurses have turned those up just a hair so that he doesn't have to work as hard while we're getting this fluid thing figured out. In the meantime, Dade is resting well right now, and even moved up on his milk intake today!
Specific prayer requests for today are that his chest continues to clear of fluid, and as always, that his lungs are ever-improving!
Thank you all for your support in the myriad forms in which we have experienced it! We love you all!
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