~*~ OFF ECMO ~*~

This morning at 6am they started weaning her flows.
She was able to maintain her numbers very well!
Dr Teodori came in about 10:30am and had a look at her, how she was doing then talked to Dr Typpo (ped intensivist) and they both agreed that today would be good to come off- her heart is in really good shape and the lungs were as good as they'd get being on EMCO.

The OR came and set up in her room and at 12:30pm on May 22nd, 2011 - at 1 month 1 day - Caralynn came off ECMO!
For the first hour things were looking pretty good..
The second hour her stats started to drop........
They told us they didn't think her lungs were good enough, but they were going to try some drugs that would boost her heart and help with the blood flow that the lungs couldn't push through.
Chris and I took the 'big kids' to eat lunch and had a hard talk.... the dr's said if her heart stopped, that would be it, they couldn't do anything else because a heart & lung transplant hasn't been done in a newborn. And if they just did the heart, the lungs being in bad shape would make it fail.

So after lunch (which Chris and I couldn't stomach to eat) - we went back and talked with them again, understanding what would be done if things didn't work... we would lose Caralynn.

Shortly after, the new medicines came.
1 hour later- they were in and working GREAT! Dr Teodori was shocked with how good her stats were when he came in... he even went from 90 on her o2 to 80...
Now, 7 hours after coming off ecmo and she's doing realllllly good! We don't know much about her lungs right now and won't really until her morning chest x-ray.
Her o2 is now at 65 and she's maintaining her spo2 at 99-100 :)
Her blood pressure and heart rate are also in perfect range!

We're getting ready to leave the hospital as we've been here for 12 hours now with the kids and it's their bedtime. This has been the longest non-stop day we've put in with both of the kids here with us...

I pray for my sweet Caralynn every minute of the day and am so thankful for everyone else praying for her. Praise GOD she is doing good right now!! We pray that she will continue to improve and be able to wean off her cardiac meds ...