Left atrial line is gone!

Well, his left atrial line was removed without incident! During rounds they discussed removing the chest tubes and pacer this afternoon, weaning off the vent [after nitric (4ppm currently) is weaned] over the next 36 hours, and weaning off sedatives, trophic feeds tomorrow!

Go Elliott, go! Such a good little boy!






Mr. Vent, you will soon be a thing of our past!





Oh boy oh boy! Swelling is resolving! Keep it up, sweet pea!











Such good numbers achieved on your own, little buddy!





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It gets better!

Doing awesome! Looks so good. Nitric at 5. O2 at 94. Heart rate at 112 on his own! Pacer down to 100. Removing left atrial line now.


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Morning update

Elliott had a good night. He recovered from the small sats drop with nitric at 14, and has tolerated continued weaning. His nitric oxide is now down to 8!


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Last update before shut eye

Mark made one last call to Nurse L before laying our heads on the pillows. I should remember to take a picture of our room at RMH tomorrow. Anyway, Elliott is doing well. They have paused the nitric wean at 14ppm for the moment to give him time to bring his sats back up to the 90s from the upper 80s. this is within the realm of expected. At the time of our call, his o2 saturation was at 91. Everything else is holding well. Let's pray for another good night!


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Weaning off the Nitric Oxide nicely

I just popped in to see Elliott on my way back from picking up the key to our room at the Ronald McDonald House (RMH). Okay, I admit it, Elliott's room is not on the way back from the RMH. I got on the elevator for the upper floors and 18 was calling me. Anyway, I popped in and he was trucking along with sats in the 90s and nitric oxide at 15ppm (down from 20 this afternoon, they are dropping it 1ppm per half hour). Woohoo! I'll check him again in a bit, before we leave the Ronald McDonald Family room on 17 and move all our stuff to our room at the RMH.

Speaking of RMH, I would like to emphasize that RMH is an amazing facility. With Elliott's turbulent few nights, being on the same campus in a comfortable room with a shower and bathroom means infinitely better sleep than in a recliner in the waiting room. Despite the urging of some, I am just not comfortable leaving the hospital. In addition to the sleeping accomodations, RMH has a family room on 17- the CVICU waiting room. The family room on 17 has a full kitchen, ice machine, is always stocked with snacks, coffee, tea, and lemonade. At around 7pm, the volunteers bring freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I sincerely hope that we will be able to give back to RMH in the future. My mom went through her prolific stash of hotel toiletries and brought a heap of them to RMH. Thank you, mom. I am in the Junior League of Houston provisional class for January, and RMH at TCH is one of their major philanthropies. TCH was actually founded with seed money from a well-baby clinic started by the JL. So, I will be spending a lot of time here next spring and summer....

Doing well, quite well

Elliott is doing well. They are discontinuing pd, weaning nitric oxide, lungs look good, tolerating vent adjustments. Likely remove the left atrial (LA) line and chest tubes tomorrow or Wednesday.

Looking a bit less puffy!








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Looking good

As promised, here is another update on our Elliott.

He is looking better and better as they pull more fluid off of him via peritoneal dialysis (pd). They may decide to dc the pd tomorrow, depending on his creatinine levels and how much more fluid is pulled off tonight. His creatinine level has been dropping every day from 0.9 to 0.84 to 0.67 over the past three days. This indicates that his kidneys are waking up from the hit they took from bypass.

Did I mention that he's been suckling in his sleep?! He remembers and is dreaming of a yummy meal of mommy's milk!


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