Surgery Update #2

Just thought that I would give everyone some more details on how the surgery went. As you can tell, Elli has a silo. It is pretty overwhelming to see at first, so we will post some pictures of that at a later date. Elli didn't have too much bleeding and is actually doing very well and has stabilized out, hopefully for the rest of the night. Her blood gases looked a little on the acidic side so they are giving her a normal saline bolus now, but her hemoglobin and hematacrit are looking good so far indicating that she is not actively bleeding anywhere. Her two drains, one in her left chest and one in her abdomen, are draining some blood but not too much so far. As far as lung tissue goes, unfortunately Elli basically has no left lung. The lung tissue that is there is very, very small also called a "nubbin" by the surgeon. So basically all oxygenation will have to be done by the right lung, which by the most recent chest x-ray after surgery, looks pretty good. Dr A. actually is very pleased with the size and said that in some cases, the right lung will grow to try to compensate for the lack of left lung. I guess this is the silver lining in this whole ordeal. The true test of it's functionability will be when the doctors start to wean her off the ECMO machine (24-48 hours from now) as long as Elli doesn't develop any bleeding issues. So basically we are back to the waiting game. As for right now Elli looks very stable, her blood pressure looks great as do the rest of her vital signs. The nurses are going to draw blood gases again at 1 to make sure that it was a fluid issue and not an oxygenation issue. So as of right she is stable and doing as well if not better than expected. Will post how she is doing in the morning. Thank you all so much for the continued support, just knowing that everyone was thinking of Elli and us was awesome. All the comments really made us feel so blessed that we have such a strong support system. Thanks again Brian, Cassi and Elli