12-18-10

Happy Saturday!!

We had another good day!  The wean off the ecmo has started.  Per Dr. Anderson, if Cooper's PO2, oxygen level in his blood, remains above 80, they will wean him by 2%.  This is every 2 hours.  Well, they have been able to do that every 2 hours today, starting at noon, except for the 8pm check.  One out of all of those isn't bad.  He is down to 87% oxygen being supplied to him by the ecmo.  Hopefully, he will be able to wean again at the 10pm check.  Just as an FYI, they will wean him down to 30% oxygen.  Room air is 21%.

Everything else remains the same.  Which is good.  His PO2 level was still within the normal range at 8, but not above 80.  So, we are very hopeful that he will be off ecmo within the next few days. 

The doctors are hoping that he is off before then too, because the surgeons would prefer not to do surgery on Christmas day or even Christmas Eve.  Frankly, I hope that they are able to before as well.  I mean we won't care when he has to have surgery, but we wouldn't want to have to spend Christmas day waiting here for surgery.

On a note for me, I'm so excited that today is the first day I haven't been swollen like a balloon.  Lea and Jaxon had a little early Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Baumert and Aunt Angel and Aunt Tracey.  They are very excited about all their new toys.  Randy, unfortunately has a headache today.  So, he is the only one who has had a bad day.  But, when you look at the big picture, he had a great day too because everyone else has had a great day.

Here's to hoping everyone else out there had a great day as well.

Sonya