ECMO wean attempt #2

Little smiles

Brave little Charlie

We are officially attempting to wean Charlie off of ECMO again. Charlie had a very good night; they were able to use the machine to pull sufficient fluid off of him, and he is continuing to put out urine on his own. His labwork has stabilized again. His echo looked good again today, but there is something else we need to keep an eye on: Charlie has a small pericardial effusion - that is to say, he has a small amount of fluid collected between his heart and the sac surrounding his heart. This isn't affecting his heart's ability to pump thus far, and the doctors don't believe it is going to be much of an issue. However, they need to keep a close watch on it to see whether it will go away on its own, or whether they will need to go in and remove the fluid surgically. Please pray that it will go away on its own with all of the diuresing that both Charlie and the ECMO machine are doing. Surgery is extremely risky, considering he has been on blood thinners since Sunday.

One more thing that is not quite concerning, but something they are keeping an eye on. On Charlie's head ultrasound today, the radiologist saw a very teeny spot on Charlie's brain on one of the images. They did not see the spot on any other image. They are unsure what it could be, or if it was just artifact, or an error. They are repeating the ultrasound tomorrow morning. We are praying that it was indeed artifact.

Otherwise, Charlie had a good day. He lost one of his central lines during CPR, so they replaced it today through a femoral vein. The bleeding from his chest has slowed considerably. He is not putting out much fluid from his lungs and, on x-ray, they look great. He was even giving a few breaths over the ventilator today. All good news.

We are feeling cautiously optimistic. It is almost scary to be hopeful again, but we could never give up on our sweet pumpkin. Charlie has touched so many lives; he has had many visitors over the past few days. A great friend brought him a very special little bear he keeps under one of his hands at all times. She asked her father, who is a minister, to come visit us today and pray over him. We had other friends also come visit today. Charlie is slowly getting to know his extended family!

Noah is also getting to know everyone. He has everyone wrapped around his little finger, and noone wants to ever put him down! He gets cuddled all day long, which of course, means he expects to be cuddled all night long too! That's okay, though, because he has Mommy and Daddy wrapped around his little finger too.

Here is hoping tomorrow is filled with more good news - or even if there are no great strides made, we will happily take a stable day with no bad news :)

Lots of love,

Josh and Mina