After an emotional day yesterday we were woken up today by a phone call from the hospital. Ellie's carbon dioxide (C02) levels ended up going back up during the night. After everything the doctor's tried yesterday they decided to temporarily paralyze her to give her time to heal and calm down. The other reason was to prevent her from closing the "kink" in her airway. The doctor's believe that she has been fighting the ventilator by either trying to breathe over it or she was purposefully clamping down on her airway making the "kink" that's already there close up. When her airway closes off she retains the C02 in her lung thus making her C02 levels elevated.
Ellie did get her PICC line in today. She also had a peripheral IV in her right hand that failed today. Her vein ruptured and the medicine she was given spilled out into her hand/arm. As of now we don't think there will be any issues with it, but it will be monitored.
Ellie was paralyzed several weeks ago. This is something we have chosen not to mention on the blog because to us it sounds so serious. I remember the day or two after she was born I woke up and called the hospital to check on Ellie and they told me they had to paralyze her. I remember crying because I didn't understand what that meant and it sounded so bad. I remember telling the nurse to use some other word like heavily sedated when they mentioned it to April. The only time I had ever heard the word paralyze, was after someone was in a bad accident and to me that meant it was a permanent thing. The doctors are using a drug called vecuronium to accomplish this. It is often thought of as a muscle relaxant and is used along with general anesthesia during surgery. With vecuronium she could still be in pain but may not show many signs. She is also on morphine and another sedative called versed to keep her comfortable and pain free. Tonight, Ellie's C02 levels were back down and are doing better. We hate to see Ellie paralyzed but we know it's the best thing for her right now. As of now they hope to start bringing the level of the vecuronium down slowly so she can come off of it in the next few days.
Five weeks ago at this time April was in full labor. We had no idea what was in store for our future. We had no idea Ellie would even survive. I am not going to mislead anyone and tell you that we haven't been afraid or that our faith in our Savior Jesus Christ hasn't been challenged. The last five weeks have absolutely been the toughest time we could never imagine. I say never imagine, because if you haven't been through something like this, and we hadn't, you could never imagine. But, I am here to tell you that our faith and our trust that Jesus Christ is in control has gotten us through this time. "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26
We have seen countless miracles performed over these last five weeks. At the time Ellie was born there were several doctors’ that didn't think she would make it, miracle #1. Ellie's lung should have been ruptured by now based on the amount of pressure that was given to her by the ventilator, miracle #2. We have been told by some of the hospital staff that they have never seen a patient going to go on ECMO (heart/lung bypass machine) that ended up not going on it and survived, miracle #3. A few doctors told us a week and two weeks after her almost going on ECMO that they didn't think she would be where she was at that time, miracle #4. I could go on and on, but I think everyone gets the picture. Our gracious Heavenly Father has touched our baby girls' life in so many ways. We are so thankful that we serve a gracious, loving, forgiving, righteous, powerful God.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30
Please continue to pray for Ellie, Payton, Jaxson, Riley, Braxton and for all the other sick children in the world. Please pray for everyone that doesn't have a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you for your continued support.
Matt (Ellie's daddy)
