Ella had a good night. She maintained her stats and is progressing in the right direction, albeit slowly with baby steps. She continues to have “episodes” where she gets very fussy which cause her stats drop significantly for a short period.
This is something that they are working very hard to manage, as these episodes are not good for Ella. There is a potential for lack of oxygen to the brain when her stats drop so significantly. They are hesitantly using small doses of paralytic meds to keep her calm.
As of right now, her surgery of shifting all the contents out of her chest is still scheduled for Monday at 8am.
Dr. Kays did mention the possibility of removing her cannulas over the weekend.
If you remember, the cannulation procedure was Ella’s first surgery where they prepared her for ECMO. An incision was made on the right side of her neck and a cannula (tube) was inserted in her jugular vein which leads to the right side of the heart while another cannula (tube) was inserted in her carotid artery. This surgical procedure was performed so that the blood supply could be exchanged with the ECMO circuit.
The underlying message: if Dr. Kays is thinking about removing the cannulas, we take this as a good sign! Many times, he will leave the cannulas in place, just in case the baby needs to go on ECMO again (the cannulation procedure is a 2 hour surgery – -not something you want to repeat if you don’t have to).
Now, it does not rule out the possibility that she would need to go back on ECMO. But the fact that Dr. Kays would even consider removing her cannulas at this stage means that he feels pretty confident that she will not need to go back on ECMO.
Please continue to pray that Ella’s body will get stronger, her fluids would reduce and that she will remain calm. We want to see her “episodes” decrease, so that she can maintain her stats and not sustain any damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen.
P.S. For those of you looking closely, you might notice that Reneke has a new buddy. Ella’s cousins sent a monkey friend to hang out with Reneke and watch over her.
His name is “Mr. CR”, because these represent the initials of Ella’s cousins (Megan, Richard, Claire and Ryan) and he’s Mr. Cousin to Reneke. We welcome him!