One Week Old and What's Up with Joseph.

Joseph and Emily are one week old today. By the time most of you read this, it will be tomorrow and you will think that I don't know what I am talking about, but I have until midnight to celebrate.

Joseph celebrated one week in a very special way. Today was a big test for him and I am sitting at his bedside waiting for the results of a blood gas to determine if he is officially OFF the ECMO machine. They started weening him off at about 2:30, by 8:30 he was at 40%, at 9:30 they clamped him off, and sent a blood gas off at 10:00 to see if he is doing well on his own. I am going to keep typing until the results come back because I am admittedly a little nervous. If the big guy can handle this he will have his hernia surgery next week, if not he goes back on and will have his surgery tomorrow while on ECMO. Clearly this is not the best option because to be on the bypass he needed to be on Heparin to thin his blood and keep it from clotting while going through all of the equipment. If he has the surgery while still recieving treatment there is a very serious risk of complications. We are definately hoping for staying off ECMO for the surgery.

Some of you may be wondering what problem he has that is causing all of this to be neccesary. Joseph was born with a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, which in normal people speak is a hole in his diaphragm. What makes this bad is that his stomach and some intestine poked up through the hole and restricted the growth of his lungs. This compression caused the lungs to have difficulty oxygenating his blood due to pulmanary hypertension. The ECMO machine pulls the blood out through a vein in his neck runs it through a pump that gives it oxygen, cleans it, warms it and puts it back through and artery in his neck. I know that it sounds just terrible, but by removing the blood and bypassing the heart and lungs it gives them a chance to rest and relieve the pressure.

All of this comes to a head right now as we wait for the doctors to make the decision, his blood gas just came back and it looks good, but they may want another one, or they may take him off based on these results, they may give him a quick blood transfusion and then check again. I am just waiting for the word................................................................................................................
aaaannnddddd its too late to do all of the tests that they want to check, so he is going back on ECMO until about 4:oo am which will have him back to this point at around 8:00 am. We get to do this all over again tomorrow, ugh! So we wait, he did a good job tonight, and I am sure that he will be a champ again tomorrow.

The Following is a picture of the ECMO Machine and Joseph.

You don't have to look at this if you are squeamish.