Tuesday Night Update, Day 23

Chrissie is doing OK now.  No more bleeding thus far.  Praying it doesn't happen again.  Chrissie's sats are all good now, with changes in the ventilator settings.  She's paralyzed at the moment (from the Vec paralytic drug), just so she won't start coughing, which can cause bleeding.  We're not exactly sure what is causing the bleeding here and there.  Dr. Porisch is going to visit with Dr. Patel (the pulmonologist who did the bronchial scope) to get his thoughts.  There were numerous reasons that Dr. Patel stated when he reviewed his findings, but the main thoughts were the inflammation and irritation, and then when the suction catheter goes down too far (just past the trachea tubing), it irritates the inflamed area, which causes it to bleed.  Everything is so complex, it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause because there are so many variables, and so many things were changed today (changed her ventilator settings, changed the drugs up:  less morphine, more methadone, less TPN (blood food), more formula feeds (into stomach), no Vec (paralytic), different respiratory therapist who positions the vent tubing differently to where the condensation from the vent drains into Chrissie's trachea...all types of variables), more movement and more coughing throughout the day, so it's just difficult to say exactly what causes these bleeding episodes.

I haven't been told anything about the culture of the cocci yet, so it may take longer to grow to a point of definitely identifying the type of cocci.

Some of you continue to ask about brain activity and how we know that Chrissie is "in there".  When Chrissie is not paralyzed and not too sedated, she has actually opened her eyes and smiled at us.  When her sedation is high (because we have to keep her from being too agitated so she doesn't pull the tubes out of her throat!), Chrissie still responds to us.  She smiles when we talk to her, she cries when she's in pain, she grits her teeth and bites her breathing tube when she's frustrated, and she makes all kinds of communicative expressions with her eyebrows and lips. When Chrissie first came off of heavy sedation, she cried when her siblings talked to her on speaker phone.  Several times Chrissie has heard her name on the K-LOVE radio station, and she has raised her eyebrows. Chrissie communicated with me via her purposeful eyebrow movement when we had to go through the emergency ECMO weaning, and this was during a time when she shouldn't have physically been able to move (due to paralytic drugs, sedation, and too high of CO2 levels which reduce movement).  We have NO doubt that Chrissie is "in there", and she hears us talking all day long.  She smiles when I'm talking about her to other people, or if I say something that embarrasses her, she frowns and starts to cry, bless her precious heart!  As far as the episode when she lifted her arms to "praise Jesus" last night when I placed her I Love Jesus balloon above her head, she didn't open her eyes to look at the balloon, but I told her that her Nana bought her a pretty balloon that had a big flower and said, "I LOVE JESUS" on it.  I told her that I was placing it above her head, and at that moment, Chrissie raised both of her arms in the air and held them there, all by herself.  Tracy, the nurse, jumped back and squealed...it kind of startled us!  I got goose bumps with an electric sensation that ran through my body.  It was a really cool moment.

In addition to all of the prayer requests I always have for Chrissie, would you please pray for the following:

• Dr. Porisch:  She got back from Iraq late Sunday night, after spending 12 days there doing medical missions where she was performing heart catheterizations on kids, as well as screening kids who have heart problems and need surgery in the US, as well as logging in all of the data on each child into the wee hours of the night.  Iraq has about an 8 hour time difference from the US, and Dr. Porisch has had several heart cases at the hospital since Monday morning.  She spent all day Monday, all of Monday night, and all day today at the hospital.  She is home tonight, but will be back bright and early in the morning for another heart surgery, and I know she'll spend her entire Wednesday, and probably Wednesday night up here at the hospital.  Please just pray for God to sustain Dr. Porisch and give her body rest, as well as high doses of His energy, wisdom, and ability.
• "B":  This is another patient of Dr. Porisch and Dr. Kupferschmid who will have open-heart surgery Wednesday.  "B"'s family members brought me a goody bag full of blessings tonight!  I had never met them, but they've been praying for Chrissie.  Please pray for "B"'s surgery to go well, without any complications.
• "E":  Praise:  "E" has shown some signs of improvement, but continued prayers needed.

Keep praying...