We visited Ella this evening and she looked good. We waited while they took another blood gas test: her levels had increased from the afternoon test. This is a positive sign.
  
Dr. Kays was called into the hospital to treat another baby for an emergency and he stopped by to see Ella. He was pleased with her stats. Again, we hope that this will be her week for surgery. We are anxious to have her removed from the ECMO machine and to see her reach this very important milestone.
 
…and just in case you were interested, Josh wanted me to let everyone know that the name of Ella’s monkey is Reneke (rah-knee-key) 🙂

Ella had a good night – – stable and progressing forward. We don’t expect much news or changes to her care today. Most of the time, the weekends are mellow without drastic changes. For now, she is maintaining a steady path and getting stronger each day.
 
Tomorrow, we look forward to seeing if her ECMO level will be dropped further along with an update from Dr. Kays on when he would like to operate. We are thinking it will be sometime this week.
 
Please continue to pray that she gains more and more strength each day. We want her stats to remain stable once she is off ECMO and this requires a lot from her little body!