Lincoln had another good day yesterday. The doctors are slowly weaning him of his oxygen through his ventilator. They turned up the oxygen percent to 100 just before his surgery to come off ECMO to give him extra support. He is now at 82, and doing well. Every two hours they turn it down by two percent, as long as his stats stay where they want them. They are continuing to check the amount of gases in his blood every 6 hours in addition to the sensors attached to his skin to be sure he is getting enough oxygen. The surgeons would like his oxygen support to be around 50 percent before doing his diaphragm repair surgery. If things keep going well, they are shooting for Friday to perform the surgery. They are also trying to wean a few meds before surgery. They just want Lincoln to be on as little support as possible at the time of surgery so that afterwards, they have room to give him more if he needs more support. They also are watching his edema, which is minimal now that he is off of ECMO. They still want him to be skinny for the next surgery so that it is easy to close his incision. Since his abdomen will end up being stuffed and stretched when they move all of his bowel and liver down, they don't want edema to be one more obstacle.
It is really amazing to watch the team of doctors and nurses here at Children's Hospital. The knowledge and experience they have about CDH is incredible. They have been able to give Lincoln so much support and care over the past 19 days, and have already saved Lincoln once with ECMO. I know they will continue to perform miracles for him every day. I cannot put into words the extent of my gratitude for every thing they are doing to save my son.
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