Post-Op: Days 1-2

Evie is doing as well as can be expected and has been stable for the past 24 hours. On Friday, an x-ray showed some "densities," as the doctor put it, which was most likely pooled blood in her lungs that was a normal result of the surgery. They have been slowly suctioning that out, and you can see it bubbling out in the "ET" tube (i.e., breathing tube) coming out of her mouth in the photo below (from Friday night around 9pm).

My parents have been with her all morning today (Saturday) and the amount of blood coming up as really trailed off, so hopefully most of it is out (you can click on any of the photos for a larger version).



Her main incision started to bleed a bit last night as well. You can that the bandage is mostly white in the first photo below, but about 3 hours later it was soaked red (second photo below).



This seemed to be caused by some blood clots caught in her chest tube drain, so the cardiac nurse was constantly messaging the tube to make sure it stayed clear. You can see that the one chest draining tube on the right (coming out of the white bandages) is nearly clear (not carrying blood), but is red above.





Below is a photo of the ECMO machine from the front. It is connected to a laptop (not pictured) and desk in the room where a nurse is attending to the machine 24 hours a day and is constantly monitoring it, making adjustments, charting progress, ect. She never leaves the machine. There are so many different people coming in and out of Evie's room checking different things that it seems like there is a minimum of 3 people in the room at any given moment. The doctors tell us that they would like to try and wean her off the ECMO machine sometime on Monday.




On the home front, little Gavin has been an absolute wreck. He knows something is different and he wants to know where his playmate is! He is constantly going over to her highchair and patting it and looking back at us with forlorn eyes. He's whiny and fitful, and on top of that, he's cutting two new teeth. We are going to try and set up some playdates for him this week so that he doesn't get too lonely.

Sorry this update came so late but we've been catching up on sleep and spending a lot of time with Evie. Thank you to everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers for her quick recovery!