Monday, July 27, 2009

Day 13-The Bounce-Back

So, we're in the 48th hour of this new ECMO circuit, and Little Man is, in large part, doing just fine! No major news except that his doctors and ECMO therapists are going after expanding his lung volume fairly aggressively now, since Rafa lost a great deal of the lung volume he gained over the previous ten days (this happened because of the body's inflammatory response to the change in circuit--fluid re-entered his chest cavity, after he had a world-record high of 10 CCs going on as of yesterday! We were so close!)

There are two silver linings in today's news: one, according to the doctors and nurses, it should take less time to regain this lost lung volume than it did to get it in the first place. Instead of growing new lung from scratch, he'll simply be puffing up the lung he'd gained and expanding on it. I put simply in big quotation marks, since growing lung is by no means a small task. You try doing it sometime!

So keep those chants and prayers focused on growing those lungs, and no more ECMO circuit changes!

The second silver lining just blows me away. Laurie, our AFCC social worker, revealed to us that Rafa's repair surgery scar, as time passes and his belly grows, will develop a silver tinge to it.

Our baby will have a silver lining to him! Can you imagine such a thing?

What a magical creature our fighter is.

2 comments:

  1. Glad he is okay and those silver linings sound good to me! Love, always.

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  2. Silver linings can indeed be wonderous!
    10-12, Baby, 10-12!
    Chanting is going on, I may not be in tune, but I am loud & the powers that be hear me!
    Love you!

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