No more SVTs!

Hi everyone,

Thank you all so much for praying, especially for our new friends up here in the PICU.

Judah has gone 24 hours without any episodes of SVT. They started a medication called digoxin that seems to have steadied his heart rate. His color is improving all the time and the swelling in his face and neck peaked last night and is slowly starting to subside. The surgeon decided that the three drain tubes could be removed today because the bleeding had slowed down enough. My dad and I watched the procedure to remove the drains (which was really pretty cool :)). The sensor taking readings of blood flow in Judah's brain was also removed. I was particularly excited that a feeding tube was added and he is now receiving the food I've been pumping for him. So he lost three tubes and a big sensor on his head and gained one tube down his nose...not bad for one day!

Today's setback is his lung function in his upper left lobe, it is still full of "junk". The respiratory therapists in the PICU have been working on it regularly by doing a "lavage" which involves putting saline down his tube into his lungs and then sucking it back out again.

They also turn Judah every couple of hours and use a vibrator under his left side to try to loosen it up. We were bummed to find out that the x-ray of his lungs this afternoon didn't show any improvement from this morning. If he had improved they were planning extubate him tonight or tomorrow morning. Instead we have to wait until tomorrow to take another x-ray to determine whether or not he has made any improvements overnight. I really hope we can get his lung function back so that we can get the tube taken out. Since the lungs and the heart are so connected its one of the last "major" things we have left to do. If he can breath on his own, which it sounds like it is already doing in some ways, then we're one more huge step to getting out of the hospital.

Kirsten