After some readjusting, Haven is back on track this evening. They plan on slowly lowering her ECMO cardiac support considerably throughout the night tonight. If she handles that alright, they would like to take her off the ECMO tomorrow afternoon. You may or may not remember, but coming on or off of ECMO requires another operation. So, if she does well tonight and through the morning, she will be back in the operating room tomorrow to take her off of the ECMO machine. She will most likely remain in the Intensive Care Unit for some time after this operation as there is much healing that is yet to be done. We are happy about the prospects, but as with any operation, it can seem scary. So we’re excited and anxious all in the same breath. We’ll keep everyone posted throughout the day tomorrow (Friday).

Haven had a good night and continued to show promise through lunch today. They have been trying to contine to wean her off of the ECMO cardiac support, but in continuing to do so this afternoon, her blood pressure dropped again and so we are stepping back to re-evaluate things. There are so many variables to troubleshoot when something goes wrong that it can take a long time to fix a problem. Hopefully, we can get things back on track for this evening so Haven can be closer to getting off of the support. She was getting rid of fluid fairly well (relatively) this morning, but again, this afternoon she stopped moving it like she was this morning. We’ll try to keep you posted as things change either way.

The doctors came by this morning to let us know that they are pleased with Haven’s heart:  the repairs, and the recovery so far.  Unfortunately, since she did go through so much trauma last Friday they are still concerned about her kidney function.  They are meeting with the Kidney folks today to discuss options for Haven.  She obviously has a LONG way to go before we can all go home, but we are happy to hear that, for the time being, her heart is doing well.  Their current goal is to be off of the ECMO cardiac support by the weekend.

Thanks for the Happy Anniversary wishes.  We’re so happy to have each other always, but especially through times like these.  Hope to hear from you soon.

They have begun to SLOWLY reduce Haven’s reliance on the ECMO cardiac support machine. Thankfully, her numbers have held steady over the past six or so hours even through the adjustments. They plan to take her a little further yet tonight if her body can continue to handle the extra work, then let her rest at that level until tomorrow. We assume, if all goes well, that they will try this same process tomorrow to hopefully have her off the ECMO support by late this week. One of the biggest issues we are facing at the moment is Haven’s retention of fluids. As you may have deduced by seeing all the tubes in her pictures, Haven is receiving many medications and fluids through several I.V.’s. Unfortunately, her kidneys are still not producing any urine to rid her of those unneeded fluids. The more time that passes without working kidneys, the greater the concern. Hopefully, by allowing her own body to do more of the work, her kidneys will spring back into action: just no sign of that happening yet.

They have decided to begin trying to wean Haven off of the ECMO cardiac support. They began turning the machine down ever so slightly a couple of hours ago. She did alright for a little while, but her blood pressure has fallen again, so they have decided to wait some more. She’s just not ready for it yet. We spoke with a doctor regarding her kidneys not working well. They are working on trying to come up with an intervention that will stop her body from swelling. As always, thanks for your prayers and support. Hopefully we will have some good news to report to you all some time.

The cardiologists, the surgeons, and all the other doctors helping Haven have decided to continue to wait things out a little longer. We believe the plan is to start adjusting her levels and flows to try to get her heart to do more work a little bit at a time. Hopefully, they will begin this process tomorrow. She still releasing very little fluid and continues to retain lots of water due to her kidneys not functioning properly. We were able to get a few more pictures. Hopefully, we’ll get those up on the site soon.

[ Sorry for the delay Jer – the pictures are up in the pictures section now. – Justin]