UPDATE (7:30am EST): Shift change at the NICU and nurse Angie is on. I just feel better knowing she is there. Ella is doing a bit better right now, her stats are going in the right direction, but she’s still having a lot of secretions in her lungs. Going to catch a few more zzz’s, if I can, and then we’ll update after we see her this morning.

UPDATE (11:00am EST): Ella is doing better this morning. She’s been awake and looking around for the last couple hours. She’s only needed to be suctioned once. Another blood gas test was done and she’s definitely doing better. Nurse Angie was concerned about the O2 levels in her brain though, so she paged Dr. Kays. He made some adjustments to the ventilator, and her O2 saturations have come back up to 100%.

Dr. Kays is still in surgery so we’ve not had a chance to meet with him. Hoping to this afternoon so we can share more details. Daddy’s breathing a bit easier this morning though. Thank you Lord for your hands that hold our little girl.

UPDATE (1:30pm EST): We finally got to speak to Dr. Kays. He still feels good with her overall progress, but there is concern with her symptoms that show a possible restricted superior vena cava. It could be a clot, but he believes that that vein has become inflamed from having the ECMO cannula inserted into it. This inflammation would cause the vein to constrict, which in turn would cause her fluids to back up. This is also the reason for the large amount of fluid coming out of her chest cavity.

He would really like to verify that this is in fact the problem, and the only way to do this is with an x-ray using contrast. The challenge is, they cannot perform this procedure in the NICU. They will need to move Ella down to radiology for this procedure. The fact that Ella has had her surgery makes this move a little less risky, but they will still need to be careful.

Once they move her down, they will perform the x-ray to determine the state of her veins. If they do see that the vein is restricted, they will insert a balloon to open it up. There are risks involved with this procedure, just like any procedure, but we pray that she’ll come through it without any issues.

Mom and Grandma are spending time with her now (only 2 visitors in the NICU at once). Her stats have been more stable now then they were last night and she looks more calm. She continues to wake up and look at her surroundings.

Tina just came out so I’m going in to take some pics and video.