Update: 4-23-09

Man...where do I start? Just when I thought the "bad days" were behind us, we hit a concrete wall. And that's exactly how I feel. The way I felt the day of Ethan's open heart surgery has nothing on this. I can't explain the sheer sadness and frustration I have right now. But, I want you guys to know what's going on with our son and, honestly, blogging has been somewhat therapeutic through the past 15 hours.

Given what his body has gone through since yesterday, he's doing pretty well. There's one number in particular that we've been watching, which is the level of lactic acid in his body. Normal range is around 1, with 3 being on the high side. When Ethan was brought over to the PCICU last night, his lactic acid level was 24. This almost guaranteed that he would be hooked up to the ECMO machine, but the doctors decided to wait it out and see what his body would do. As of right now, his lactic acid is 3. Simply amazing.

The idea is that as this level drops, his heart function should improve. Unfortunately, the echo that was performed this morning still showed that his heart is not functioning as it should. It's hard to say if this is due to him still recovering from cardiac arrest, or if this is going to present a problem. The next 24-48 hours should shed a little more light on that.

Also, in regards to his heart it is now producing beats on its own. Well, the way it does with the pacemaker, I should say. Last night, both the atria and ventricles were being paced at a rate of 130 beats per minute. Today, his atria is beating on its own and the ventricles are being paced to keep up. This is the same way his pacemaker was performing before all this happened. I hope that makes sense.

Chest x-rays show that his lungs are looking OK. He was given Surfactant last night and this has made a huge difference. His oxygen saturation levels are staying in the high 90's, and often times, at 100%. The jet vent seems to be doing exactly what we want at this point.

We met with a general surgeon this morning in regards to his bowels. The thought is now that maybe the bowels weren't the problem to begin with. The x-rays look OK (not necessarily normal, but OK) and don't seem to be a cause for concern right now. The surgeon said he's mainly concerned about how they will recuperate from the lack of blood flow they received while Ethan was coding last night. They will watch him over the next few days to check the function of those as well.

A quick, preliminary ultrasound of Ethan's brain showed that it looked structurally normal, with no areas of bleeding. However, the radiologist asked that the ultrasound be repeated this morning just to get a more thorough idea of what's going on. The chest compressions last night lasted about 10-11 minutes, so there is some concern that his brain could have been injured due to a lack of oxygen. There are no signs pointing to this right now, but again, everyone triple checks things around here, so we'll hopefully know something this afternoon.

It also seems as though Ethan's kidney function is good. He is peeing as he should, which is a really good sign. He may be put on Lasix just to help pull off some of the fluid they've been giving him over last night and today.

I wish I could sit here and update you guys on the logistics all day long, for your sake and mine. It's almost like I turn into "robot mode" as I listen to doctors and come here to share the information. I become emotionless, and that feels good right now.

But when I really sit for a minute and realize what is happening to our family, it's more than I can handle. When I see him looking worse than he did 6 1/2 weeks ago, I can't deal. I absolutely loathe seeing him like this, yet something stronger than myself keeps pulling me to his side. I try to think about his sweet smiles, his cry, and how healthy he was just 2 days ago, but that almost makes it worse. I get sick to my stomach when I think about the going home outfit we bought last week, or the carseat I just had installed. He should be wearing those cute clothes. He should be riding in our car, sleeping in his crib, and meeting so many of you. But he's not. He's very sick and, as of right now, no one knows why. I want this rollercoaster to stop. I want him to be well and doing all the things we had imagined he would do.

But he's not, and I can't deal with the reality of that.