Good morning Ruby had a goodnight, all things considered. She's still peeing well and her heart is ejecting. She was a bit wiggly yesterday evening, but they finally got all her meds caught up to her around 2am so she's been heavily sedated since then. Our nurse said they do this sort of intervention several times a year, usually heart surgery is the reason and that babies chewing through their meds post op is very normal. Dr Horne and the whole team came by to check on her and get her switched into a better bed with a softer mattress. He said her x-ray looks good and that they are going to very slowly increase the flow to her heart to begin the stretching process. Her heart was very overworked from all the extra pressure from her lungs, so the muscle is very thick and needs to relax and stretched out slowly. Very slowly filling it up with blood should, hopefully, achieve that. He said she isn't too puffy because she is peeing out a lot on her own and they are also taking off the extra fluid via the ECMO machine. She has 2 nurses taking care of her and an ECMO specialist this morning. Eight people had to come in to lift her and bring in her new bed because of all the lines attached to her. Today they're going to do three things. Decrease the flow from ECMO Keep removing fluid to reduce edema in her lungs and body Increase her feeds slightly If all continues to trend well they will challenge her heart on Saturday. So, slowly take her off ECMO and see how she does. Tom slept in our sleep room last night and I slept on a cot in the room that opens into hers. We'll switch back and forth every night so one of us is always handy should something happen. The sleep room is just 30 seconds away, and they can call the phone in there if they need us, but obviously we want to be as close as we can while still getting some rest.
^ Here on the right you can see the ECMO machine that is pumping and filtering her blood. It's doing the job of her heart and lungs.