update #1 for today

Many, many things have happened since yesterday and clearly the prayers for God's guidance of the doctors in their care of Carson continue to be answered in abundance...

Last night after the family had supper the doctors said that two clots were already forming in the tubes of the ECMO machine. As of yesterday morning Carson's lung X-rays were still white due to the vast amount of fluid in his lungs which meant he absolutely had to have the ECMO machine to survive but his evening scan around 8:30 showed great improvement, not perfect but certainly not as bad. So Dr. Yang discussed with Liz and Preston the idea of weaning him off ECMO machine rapidly and let his body take over with the blood issues. He underscored that this was not a conventional treatment method but after discussion Liz, Preston and Francie agreed nothing about Carson has been conventional (what 3 day old preemie baby, survives major surgery against all odds) so they decided to move forward with weaning Carson from ECMO around 10pm. This occurred in 3 steps and then finally completely off the machine. During all of this Dr. Yang, despite having other patients, remained by Carson's side from 7:30 last night until 2:30 in the morning and was back again 6:30 this morning. They closely monitored Carson's progress through each of the steps and he did well, his blood gas stats were good and they had even backed him off the ventilator.

This morning at 7:30 they removed the cannulas, which means no returning to the ECMO machine. Carson is on 100% ventilation just due to all this trauma to his body. Dr. Yang feels that his body should take over now on all his blood issues. So the biggest prayer request is that Carson continues to pee, pee and more pee. We need that isolet covered in quarters. We also need to pray that he continues on the path of recovery in all areas. If he continues to improve Dr. Yang feels in a couple days he could have Liz's milk in order to improve his Jaundice condition (he is quite dark right now).

Again THANK YOU for all your prayers!

Posted by Carolyn