rollercoaster

so the ride begins. this morning susan's father arrives. when doug read the blog last night, he decided to hop on a plane and see his daughter, son-in-law and grandson. his arrival was welcomed.

today's plan was to test samuel's heart again off ecmo and visualize its function via echocardiogram. as samuel's prognosis isn't good, vladana speaks to the couple about organ donation. unfortunately, he only has a few good organs to give. the attending tells us that they typically don't transplant kidneys this small, so the best case scenario is that they're able to harvest his corneas. we advocate giving any tissue that might help another child.

by 3 pm, they have a cardologist ready to run the echo and cross clamp the ecmo circuit. we fear the worst as this is the last chance for samuel to show us something positive. his ecmo circuit is starting to form more clots in the arterial line. the surgeons need to know that there's a chance of survival before they'll replace the line or do anything else.

they clamp the circuit for 90 seconds while the cardiologist, vivekanand, views the ultrasound. it's an amazing few seconds as we're all able to see the left ventricle open up. and with that, there's a glimmer of hope that his left heart will be able to provide circulation in place of ecmo. he sits down with us, camile and vladana to share the good news. he warns us that there are people on his team that aren't as optimistic and think samuel's heart will not be able to sustain him. it's a flawed heart and will require further surgery several months later (should he make it that long). this buys samuel another 24 hours, when they will repeat the echocardiogram and re-evaluate.

surgery comes back to the nicu ~ 6 pm and cleans out the cannulas and swap in a new ecmo circuit.

our samuel has given us another day.