Today around 1:30 we had to leave Ruby's room so that the surgeon could clean out her dressing and challenge her heart (possibly). Her room converts into an operating room, which means she didn't have to be moved. The following is our update after the procedure was done and talking to the surgeon.
Thank you all for your prayers, the procedure went well! Dr. Horne cleaned out the opening in her chest and said that things are looking good and there wasn't any bleeding or infection.
They challenged her heart, so reduced the flow to 150cc and then clamped the flow from the lines. They had a bit of trouble initially, but overall it gave a positive result. They are going to keep trying daily over the next few days, and will see how she does. Often they'll have issues with ECMO once they reduce flows, but until that is an issue it will be safer and easier on everyone involved to keep her on it. The more time she's on the more time her heart has to relax, stretch out and recover. She's been doing exceptionally well with it and everyone is very impressed, so all the prayers are making way for her, we know it.
It's all incredibly complex, so it's hard to wrap my head around it, but I'll try to explain some of what they're telling us. Some of the trouble during the trial was related to the way her right side was contracting, because it wasn't relaxing as well as it needed to and was a bit out of sync. Another part was related to pressure in her lungs and just the condition of her lungs from laying down and not moving for this long. They started treating her for pulmonary hypertension yesterday and during the trial they put her on nitrous oxide to help her lungs out a bit.
There were other things around balancing her pressures and other numbers on the monitors, but again, all incredibly complex and I don't have the multiple degrees to understand let alone explain it all, though we're learning, lol!
Anyways, the flow is at 250cc from ECMO at this point and she is ventilated at 60%. For reference, she started at a flow rate of 850cc. Over the next few days they'll wean her off of both, Lord willing. And then it will be a few days before they stitch her to make sure the repairs hold and her heart function is good. Please continue to pray ❤️🩹