Thursday morning

Well, the procedure was successful- they were in there a while, but they didn't have to use the ECMO machine for bypass, and they were able to get a 3.5mm ET inserted down to her carina to act as a stent in the repair. The very top part of the repair was still tight, as if maybe there was one more cartilage ring that was still snug, but they were able to gently push through and dilate it a little bit. They really feel like there has been progress made, possibly by passing the scope through a few times to help dilate things ever so slightly. So for now she is paralyzed for the forseeable future until she is reassessed- we don't want to risk any movement of that ET tube. It's agonizing watching anyone mess with her tube at all... even when they are very careful. She had a good quiet night with stable numbers, and her HR and BP are down in much more reasonable rates. This morning she looks better too- the puffiness in her eyes has gone down, although her hands and feet are still pretty big. Her belly is still a little big but doesn't seem to have gotten any bigger overnight. She's putting out great amounts of urine and her blood gases and chemistries are looking good. She was low on albumin and hemoglobin so they're dosing her with albumin and giving another blood transfusion to be on the safe side. So for now we're hoping for a few days of quiet while she just lays easy and heals that patch in a nice open formation. Sounds like unless things change, Monday will be the earliest we'll be looking at checking again with the scope- we've heard that before and had things drastically change just a couple hours later, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.