Sit and wait

Today was another mostly stable day. Last night, they attempted to wean Charlie off of ECMO. He apparently did a very good job - he was able to be weaned down to less than half the amount of bypass that he had started on! However, close to change of shift they realized he had something else going on - the chest incision which had reopened had begun bleeding even more. They decided to go back up on bypass so that he wouldn't be stressed, and worked on fixing his bleeding. Dr. Sinha added more stitches to his wound, which appears to have slowed the bleeding down.

Of course, because of the bleeding we are back to the main game - fluid balance. They had to pump Charlie full of fluid and blood. Now he is puffy, and needs to be diuresed again. His Lasix is up; they are using the ECMO machine to help remove excess fluid as well. Once he is more fluid balanced, they will consider weaning him again. They also have to account for how much fluid he is losing through his chest incision as well as his chest tubes. It is a careful balancing act, which was difficult to begin with - and the tip too far into the negative is probably what caused us to land here in the first place.

So we continue to sit and wait. We visit our pumpkin daily and ask him to keep fighting. We promise him that we won't give up on him as long as he wants to fight, and remind him that we love him. We are still so grateful to all the friends and family that surround us with company, love and thoughts daily.

Hoping and praying for more stable, if not good news tomorrow.

Lots of love,

Josh and Mina