A few steps backwards

Imagine every time you took a breath, that your airway almost completely closed up. Now imagine that people were always messing with you, waking you up just after you fall asleep, and giving you nasty shots in your legs every 12 hours. Now, imagine only being 6 weeks old, and all of this makes you cry. Amelia is really swollen in her throat because of where ECMO went into her neck, and because of the breathing tube. The first few days after being taken off of the ventilator, she had a pretty bad stridor, and was working very hard to breath. Friday night she got so worked up and wouldn't calm down. Her SATS, which are very important, dropped down into the 30's. They're supposed to stay between 75-85, and can drop into the lower 70's when she is upset, but really shouldn't drop any lower than that. So you can imagine that the 30's is a dangerous place for her. When she had her first "event" in the OR a couple weeks ago, her SATS dropped into the 50's, but her heart rate dropped very low. This time, her heart rate stayed stable, which is good, so they didn't have to do CPR or put her on ECMO. They did, however, decide to put her back on the vent and let her body relax while it breaths for her. They wanted to get her on the vent to prevent her from having another "event", as they call it. Luckily she got stable really quick aftet that. The swelling from ECMO should be going down right now, so hopefully when they take her off the ventilator, she will have an easier time breathing. 

Her blood pressure did dip really low for a while on Sunday, so they're keeping a close eye on her. 

This is obviously a bummer, I feel so bad for the poor thing. She just can't catch a break. Today they are doing an ultrasound on her kidney's, an echo, and putting a picc line in her leg. The picc line in an IV that has a catheter that goes pretty close to the heart. This kind of IV can stay in for a long time and carries less a risk of infection. The last thing Amelia needs right now is an infection. 

Things to pray for:

~Her blood pressure, we really need it to stay stable. 

~Her swelling. It would be nice if her swelling would go down a lot, so that when they take the tube out, she can breath comfortably. 

~The ultrasound on her kidneys. Unfortunately, these surgeries can cause the kidney's to take a hit, so we're hoping that they have bounced back just fine. 

~That they can get the picc line in easily. They tried last week, but weren't able to get passed scar tissue from the picc line that they put in after her first surgery. 

~David, Emma, and I all miss each other. Terribly. ): 

Thanks everyone, for your encouragement and prayers. We love and appreciate you all very much. 

Love, Kelly