One week update

OK, so we go two days without an update, and you all let us know! Thank you for being so diligent in following the blog, and supporting us.

Eli is one week old today, five days since open heart surgery. He continues to make progress, and we're so thankful. It's very easy to start seeing this stage as a quick setback, and forget to recognize how fragile he still is. This is still the ICU, his nurse is still dedicated to only him, and he's still being pumped with (looking across the room) 14 different medications. He's still heavily sedated, and he's still on a respirator.

Monday night/yesterday morning represented the peak of his swelling. Fluids are being retained all over his body. This is completely normal and expected. As his surgeon stated "When you smash your thumb with a hammer, the entire thumb swells. We just hit his entire body with a really large hammer, and he's swelling." At the peak of the swelling, he couldn't even open his eyes. It was most obvious around his neck and the back of his head. Late yesterday, they finally started the diuretics to help speed the process, now that his body is starting to eliminate these fluids on its own. We've seen his eyes several times today.

He's off the epinephrine, which is adrenaline, used to increase blood pressure. He's managing that himself. His respirator is now feeding 23% oxygen, only 2% higher than normal air. His blood's O2 saturation is showing 85% as I type this, exactly where they want it to be.

They've taken him off of fentanyl, a sedative, because he's building a tolerance, and have changed it out for an alternative.

He had an ultrasound/echo of his heart today. The cardiologist says "his echoes look good!" There are so signs of obstruction in either the LVOT nor the VSD. Praise God for those! We so desperately hope Eli will be able to maintain a 3 chamber heart, and these two areas are the deciding factors. Please continue to pray for these, specifically.

The rest of the equation is Paige and Tanya and I. Paige is handling this whole thing very well! She's managed to learn how to sleep with us in the room. She's not had any full-on meltdowns. We're recognizing how helpful it will be to have on-site babysitters once the out-of-state grandparents go back home. She gets play time from 10am-lunch, and someone to watch her sleep from about 1:30-4:00. So many have asked how they could possibly help, and this has become our first obvious need.

Tanya and I try to make time for each other, as best we can. We're in a Catch-22. We so desperately enjoy and even need our friends. Every visit is such a treasure for us, honestly. We're also recognizing that we're not making time for just Tanya and I because of this. For now, we're still waiting for all the dust to settle. Half of the grandparent support will be gone by this weekend, so that will throw a new twist into the equation. We're hoping to be able to finalize our system after that time. Hopefully, that doesn't read as them being a hindrance. There's no way we could do this without them. But, in a week, we have to learn how to do this ourselves. Maybe anchoring ourselves into specific "down time" with Paige will help stabilize our day, as well. We're oncomprimisingly dedicated to each other, and set on making each other a priority. Without a solid foundation, I can see how destructive this is known to be on some relationships.

One other final note. The helipad is real close to RMH, so we hear every landing and lift off. Now being on this side of the trauma, and seeing the families shattered as they watch the Life Flight, we're torn every time we hear that sound. It's a horrible scene, yet we're so thankful for the technology that makes that level of transport possible. We hear stories of accidents and crisis from other RMH residents, and we can only imagine how much worse that must be, as compared to us being able to prepare for 4 months for what's to come. Our hearts go out to those families.

What to pray for:

Eli's continued recovery, obviously.
Specifically, that the LVOT and VSD stay the course, and are a permanent solution for him.
That Paige continues to feel loved, special, and continues to handle this whole thing so well.
That Tanya and I bond even closer through trials, rather than build walls of defense.
That God continues to be glorified by the entire process. That's what this is all about.