Day 8 Update: Steady As She Goes

It's Sharon blogging. When I got up to Evie's room today, there were seven people crammed in it, all with hairnets and masks. I opted to wait outside the door and watch through the glass until her nurse was able to get away and explain what they were doing. They were changing the ECMO machine because it had some blood clots in it (the hospital must have several, maybe dozens, of these ECMO machines). They also changed the dressing on her incision.

As Francis noted in the post below, clots form more easily now because Evie is not being given Heperin through her IV lines, so it is necessary to change the entire machine and most of her tubing. I could see her squirming while this was happening, but once it was finished she fell sound asleep.

She slept for about two hours. Her nurse, Jenny, is one of our favorite nurses and has cared for Evie during all of her post-op stays in ICU. Jenny told me that we could move Evie's arms slightly to "exercise" them, so I did that with her, but Evie was zonked out the entire time.

She only woke up when Dr. Ilbawi walked into the room to check on her. He is pleased with her progress: she had even less bleeding in her lungs today than yesterday (as Jenny said, "1000 % improvement"). Today's chest X-Ray also showed less blood in her lungs. The plan is to hold steady tomorrow, start Heperin again on Sunday, and begin weaning her off ECMO on Monday! We just can't wait to get her seperated from that machine.

Here is Evie watching one of the nurses adjust one of her meds:


Back at home, Gavin has enjoyed running around in just his diaper. He had a great time today with Nana & Grandpa Cermak, and when I got home we took him to Whole Foods. We had not been to the new Naperville store, and we thought Gavin would enjoy it. He had fun riding in the stroller, holding onto some chips and a water bottle, and tasting a sample of Puffin cereal!