July 31, 2009

Not out of the woods yet....

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to update you on Jenna. She had a good night, did not need to be placed back on the pacer wires because her pressures maintained. All of her levels maintained through the night, which is a good sign. She started to wake up around 2am, so they restrained her arms. This morning when we came in, she seemed to know that daddy and I were here, she started to jerk up her arms and open her eyes. This was a good sign, nothing is going to slow her down. She did not have to have any medicines added and none were taken away. She is still on the ventilator and it is still mostly doing the breathing for her still. They have now lowered her nitric oxide which relaxes her lungs, but since we arrived they had to give her two doses of morphine and increased her fentnyl twice to help relax her. So, hopefull she will stay sleepy for a while. She has some fluid in her lungs from the surgery and they are draining it too. During rounds this am, they said that they wanted to do an echocardiogram to see how her pressures are doing. Based on that test, it will determine the next step of either taking her to the cath lab to further look at the pressures or back into the OR to open her hole he just patched. Her bloodwork looked stable and they want to continue to monitor her, since we are still in the first 24 hours after surgery. So, while we stepped out to breakfast, they decided to do her echo and when they gave her Versed for more sedation, her blood pressure dropped really low and her oxygen too. They gave her fluid to help bring it back up, which helped and they were able to stabilize her. During the echo, Dr. Hirsh the cardiologist came in to get a preliminary look at her pressures and stated that her right is still higher than her left, which is opposite of what it should be, but it is lower than before, which is a step in the right direction. He said that since she was in surgery so long yesterday (12 + hours) and the extent of surgery, it causes her heart to be really swollen. During surgery her pressures were so high, and she was a little touch and go on the direction she was going, but seems to be getting better every hour. Now we are just waiting. He said that they would like for her left side of the heart to begin pumping more out, because this is what it should do. He said that if her cardiac output starts deteriorating, like her urine output lowers or her pressure drops, this is an indication her ventricle is not pumping like it should and we may have to go back into the cath lab. He said that once they receive the full results back from the echo, then they will decide the next step. Since the first report showed a good result, then it is possible that this means that her heart is improving and over time and the swelling goes down, then we may be able to just watch her and make sure it does not change. Once they determine the next step, we will let everyone know. We appreciate all of the love, support and prayers. Talk soon.

Love, Jenny, Justin and Jenna

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