To our surprise, Dr. Kays called this morning to let us know that Ella had been bumped up on the surgery schedule. They are taking her down around 10am EST, doing some prep and starting the surgery. The surgery itself should take about an hour and a half, but we will not likely have an update until around 1pm EST.

Once we have the outcome of the surgery with all the details, we will update the post.

Thank you for your continued prayers for Ella.

UPDATE (1:00pm EST): The nurse practitioner just came out to let us know that Ella is stable and looks comfortable. We’re waiting to go back and see her as well as hear the details about the surgery from Dr. Kays. Stay tuned…

UPDATE (3:00pm EST): We spoke to Dr. Kays. He indicated that surgery went ok, but he had to limit the procedure due to Ella’s tolerance. In her left cavity, he placed two larger chest tubes and worked to break up some gelatinous protein build up that he found. Due to Ella’s stability though, he chose not to make any changes to her right side at this time.

For now, he’s going to let her stabilize and then will perform some additional procedures to help her progress forward. One of these may include an intentional chemical scarring of her chest cavity, forcing the lungs to adhere to the chest wall. It sounds worse then it is, but it’s not something you want to have to do either.

We know Dr. Kays carefully weighs all his options, and we trust that if this procedure needs to be done, it’s in Ella’s best interest.

One additional item: Ella’s feeding tube didn’t make it into the right place the other day. So Dr. Kays was able to resolve this during the surgical procedure by passing Ella’s feeding tube by her pyloric valve. This will minimize her stomach expansion while still providing food to our baby girl’s intestines. Ella’s food was stopped temporarily for the procedure today, but we hope they can start it up again real soon.

UPDATE (10:30pm EST): We called to check on Ella tonight. Nurse Janet, one of the Fabulous Four, is taking care of her. This always makes for a peaceful night’s rest!

Since the surgery, she has had a total of 142ccs of chest fluid output (35 right, 107 left). That is a lot of fluid output for less than a 12 hour span!

They took a blood gas this evening and you can tell that Ella has less pressure on her lungs. Her pH level is 7.3, cO2=64, pO2=132. Part of the high pO2 is reflected in the ventilator giving her 60% oxygen versus 50% before her procedure. But even so, we have not seen these types of numbers in a while.

We are still holding out that maybe Ella’s body can resolve this fluid issue before Dr. Kays has to chemically scar her chest wall. Her blood gases and chest x-rays are the most determining factors. For now, we are going to get some rest and pray that Ella has a restful night too.

Thanks again for all the continued prayers throughout the day. We know it makes a difference.