Haven’s chest tube on her left side surprisingly continues to drain (she has drained nearly 2 liters of fluid since that tube was put in). Thankfully, the output appears to be a little less every two hours. The doctors decided that a second drainage tube on her right side needed to be put in due to an increase in the amount of fluid that has built up over her right lung. They put that in this afternoon and it drained about 3 ounces (as much as the other side did) initially. Everyone here is amazed at where all this fuild is coming from. They have some theories, but at this point the source remains unknown.

They haven’t come down on her ventilator today and probably won’t come down much this weekend. We have requested that the doctors take a very conservative approach to weaning Haven off of the ventilator in hopes to make her stronger before she comes off and also to help prevent having to go back on for the fourth time. A specialist came in today to closely examine her airway for defects or structural problems that might be hampering her breathing. He found nothing initially; however, he was unable to examine the upper portion of her airway (primarily the top of her trachea around her vocal chords) because she is on the ventilator. They suspect she could have some collapse in this area which obviously would be causing some breathing problems. They plan on addressing that once she is ready to be taken off the ventilator (hopefully sometime mid to late next week).

Her numbers have been steady all day. She is still on blood pressure medicine but off the paralytic. They have also come down a little on her sedation in hopes that she will start to move and mobilize the extra fluid. Her NJ feed tube is now in place. Over the past two hours she has received pedialyte and they started milk at 5:00pm. We’ll all be watching closely over the next 24 hours to see how her body responds to having food again. Taking feedings has always been an issue for Haven’s body, and doctors all agree that she will heal better and quicker if she has mom’s milk instead of just vitamins through an I.V. line. Hopefully, this new tube will allow her to get nutrition from the milk without having to deal with her stomach problem (which can’t be addressed further until she is off the ventilator). It’s amazing how so closely related all of these issues are, especially for a tiny baby. [Well, she’s not exactly tiny at the moment.]

Today is the six week anniversary of her Norwood procedure (the first of her three major heart surgeries) and we’ve been here nearly 50 days. The doctors here have been great and are working hard to get Haven better as soon as they can. Under the circumstances, Haven is the one that is in control of timing and just how much she is able to handle. As always, thank you for checking up on her and keeping us all in your thoughts and prayers.