Lucas goes home, Merry Christmas!

Hi all,

I'm pleased to announce that Lucas has been released from the hospital as of last night.  The family is back together and doing well.  We have converted a bedroom into a small hospital room to handle his NG feeding, medicines, weighing and other needs.

We do know that the ALT and ACT enzymes are down, as well as the GGT.  So that means that if there was blockage between the gall bladder and the liver it is clearing out.  His conjugated bilirubin is slowly coming down and his unconjugated bilirubin is doing fine.

His big problem was that he was weak from the ECMO and respirators.  So he had to be fed via the NG tube until he was strong enough to do that himself.  He is very close to accomplishing this. The hope is that in 3 days he will be done with the NG tube, but we have enough gear for 2 weeks.

We still have a long list of appointments and follow ups because no one knows really what happened.  That may always be a mystery but, I know several people are trying to sort it out.

Merry Christmas everyone.  Thank you so much for your support and wonderful help.  I'm amazed at how many great friends we have.  I'm sure we will post a few more updates but, until then here are a couple pictures.