More good news

Hi all,

Today Lucas improved vastly.  Realize that by that I don't mean that he will be coming home any time soon.  But, what has happened is that this was this morning.

Turned into this

And then at 10 tonight it became this

Look at the numbers in red.  That his arterial blood pressure.  For a normal baby it should be 60/30.  But, while he is hooked to ECMO they want it to be 15.  ECMO moves so much blood that it actually is hiding his tidal volume in its noise.  Their pumps can't mimic the heart and even if it could they wouldn't be able to synch and the two would fight with each other.  So it moves blood more like a garden hose.  At any case you can see that his heart is where they wanted it to be.  You might notice his pulse is down in the last picture.  They actually had to increase his morphine and tried a relaxant.  He was starting to move around too much.  It sort of kills you really because you want to play with him and his little feet move.  His hands are moving around and you can tell he wants to get up. But, as long has he has two tubes running into his neck to his heart they can't have him doing anything.  So he is sort of forced into a relaxed state.  No big deal but, its hard as a parent not to want to touch and stimulate him.

So this is what he looks like now.

He is really puffy.  We like to think muscular.  Our current nurse told us he might be like this for a couple weeks as he works it back out of his system.  So he will just be a bit state puff.  No one seems alarmed about this so this is normal.

Other good things.

• He pooped.  This gave enough fecal matter to test for rotavirus
• His left ventricle heart clot... vanished.
• This is probably even better new than anything else because this clot was going to be the next big hurdle.
• What they think might have happened is that when they did the echocardiogram where they noticed it the clot, that ventricle  wasn't really pumping.  The blood in there wasn't really moving and the tech described it as "crud" or "sludge".  So it could very well be that they just were not use to reading it when it wasn't moving and it appeared as a clot to them.
• They did look for where it could have gone, the scare was from the left ventricle, it could had headed into his brain and caused a stroke.  
• They found the placenta
• This may seem sort of weird but, somehow it got lost over at Group Health.  They found it and sent it by courier.
• The courier was really curious what this very important box was that said "biological" on it.  But, because of HIPAA they couldn't tell him.  So some courier will never know.
• The lab at Children's is where everyone sends that sort of thing for a biopsy.  So if there are any clues as to what happened.  They will find it.
• He is peeing really well.
• Better than they expected, so they put him on the diuretic lasix.  He is responding really well and moving lots of fluids out of his system.
• They stopped using Dobutamine
• Think if this as adrenaline tailored for the heart.  It gives you a boost of power.  He doesn't need it anymore because his heart has improved so much
• All of the test that have come back are negative for viruses and bacteria
• There are still many out 
• 60% of the time they can get something to culture.

So lots of good things.  It seems like many of you praying might have helped more than you thought.

This brings us into a more standard path for the folks here as odd as that may seem.  So hopefully nothing new will surface and he will heal according to their regular procedures.

But, this bring us to a new point.  What happened?  This is important because what should they be watching for as Lucas gets older.  How often will we have to go in for a echocardiogram?

These are the 2 theories that I have been able to scrape out of people.

Dr Christine (leaving the last name out)

• She may be the most advanced physician here and she believes it must be a bacteria. 
• You simply don't heal that quickly from a virus.
• There was the possibility of phenomia in the lungs (this is more of a condition than a disease)
• You could see this on an early xray

Nurse

• It could have been strep
• Jess tested negative but, sometimes you can still have it
• She has seen babies this sick before by contracting it in the womb

My theory is that because 2 weeks 1 day prior, the mom, lost her plug that a bacteria could have gotten into the amniotic sack and into his lungs.  That could have cause then inflamation.  Then after he was born they cooled him to prevent brain damage but that would have caused more problems with the infections. (Dr. C told me this).  His heart was already in trama and proceeded to shut down and take a break.

We may never know this answer but, I figure its best to speculate and maybe something will come out of it.

Anyway, good night.  I hope to report more good news later.

Here is a video of Lucas's sister singing happy birthday to a metal ball.