11:00 PM
Today was a very busy day in the PCICU, but Courtney decided to chill and give her nurses and ECMO staff a break and had a fairly uneventful day. They were not able to perform all the tests that they had planned today, but they should be performed by sometime tomorrow.
Although Courtney had a chill day, her equipment decided to throw a wrench into the works. There was a blood clot that formed in the tubing of her ECMO machine, which caused the dialysis machine to stop. There is always a one-on-one staff member from the ECMO team beside Courtney and the machine, as well as, immediate help available from additional ECMO staff, the one-on-one nurse in her room, or additional nursing staff. Because of that, they immediately responded and took care of the ECMO issue with NO interruption to it's functionality for Courtney. Unfortunately, the dialysis machine wasn't as appreciative of their efforts and the entire machine had to be replaced. We have never needed ECMO before this stay in the hospital, but we can wholeheartedly say that the ECMO team here is AWESOME!!!!! They are maxed out on the number of patients that they can support and are working incredible amounts of hours with little or no rest. Astonishingly enough, I have not heard a single complaint from any of them. Our hope is that anyone reading this can take our word for how wonderful they are and never have to find out on their own.
Although we don't know to what degree that Courtney can hear us yet, we still talk to her a lot, as well as, play her favorite music for her on her iPod or sing to her. Today Kelsey wanted Courtney to "watch" a move with her, so she stood by the bed and placed a laptop by Courtney's head and used her earbuds (one in Kelsey's ear and the other in Courtney's ear) so that they both could listen. Kelsey chose to watch "Tinkerbell - Secret of the Wing" since it is about sisters.
11:00 AM
Uneventful seems to be our word for the day also ... no significant changes from yesterday. The plan for today is to tweak her ventilator and ECMO settings to help her lungs recover enough to only need the ventilator [hopefully by next week].
They will perform some echos and ultrasounds to evaluate the current status of her heart and abdomen, as well as a few other miscellaneous tests to try to better evaluate her current status.
7:30 AM
Courtney had an "uneventful" night last night. I know that isn't much of an update, but it is amazing at what we can be thankful for at times. Courtney has always taught us about perspective and this is one time that we are thankful for "uneventful".
I will try to update more later in the day once we know what the plan of attack is for the day. I am working today, so once Jennifer hears the plan after the doctors round, we will know more. I know that the big plan for the day is to continue working on the full recovery of her lungs with the goal of getting her off of ECMO once her lungs are ready, but I don't know the timeframe.
Thank you again for your continued prayer support.
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