Thank you for your thoughts and prayers throughout the day.
 
Ella is doing well this evening – – and we pray for her stability throughout the night. Her pain medications and sedation medications will slowly be reduced over the next few days.
 
You can’t tell from the black and white pictures, but she is beginning to look better! Our little tangerine has now turned into the little Michelin baby.
 
So, the next steps are going to be safely reducing her body fluid. This can’t be done too quickly, so we’ll need to be patient.
 
Praise God that she has made it past the 48 hour window from her big surgery too!
 
But she is sooo swollen – – her face, head, back, arms, etc. She has so much extra fluid in her body. Her left eye is still swollen shut from so much fluid and being leaned to one side.
 
After the procudure today, they were able to position her with her head straight up. Already, she looks better! If nothing else, her parents feel better. We cannot imagine being in one position for the last 4 weeks – – yikes!
 
Dr. Kays again confirmed that Ella continues to do well and is progressing in the right direction, albeit slowly. He is “pleased” with her progress at this point.
 
We know that everyone is praying for Ella, coast to coast, and that is having a direct impact on how well she has been progressing.
 
Thank you Lord for this day, for our baby girl, and the love of friends and family.
 
p.s. “Therefore we do not lose heart….For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17)

(picture of Tina and nurse Angie watching over our baby girl)

Ella had another good night. Her blood gases have been stable and she’s still as cute as ever. At the moment, she has a good amount of fluid build up so she looks pretty swollen. We’re hoping the chest tube will give some relief in this area.

We had expected her surgery to be done this morning, but there’s been no sign of Dr. Kays. We really hope that he is still planning to work on her today. The sooner those cannulas come out, the sooner she can start being turned on her side and stomach.

UPDATE (1:30pm EST): About 10 minutes after the above post, Dr. Kays walked in a kicked us out of Ella’s area so he could do the surgery. We’re expecting him to finish up around 3:00pm EST.

UPDATE (3:30pm EST): Nurse Angie poked her head out about 45 mins ago and said that the surgery is progressing well. We’re expecting things to wrap up soon.

UPDATE (4:10pm EST): Dr. Kays just came out with his team. Ella’s surgery went fine. She did have a little blood loss so they’ll be monitoring that. They’re also in the process of replacing the arterial line in her belly button which they use to draw blood, give meds, and monitor her blood pressure. They’re are also going to take a chest x-ray to confirm the placement of the chest tube and arterial line.