THE WEANING PROCESS HAS BEGAN....

Today we started weaning Cooper off the ECMO machine. Every hour they turn the machine down and every 2 hours they pull labs that tell us how he is doing. So far so good! I am so nervous I can't sit still. Everyone is so optimistic I hope they are right!!!! We will continue with this all day. If all goes well then around 10:30am tomorrow morning they will take Coop in for exploratory surgery. This surgery will revisit the heart and make sure everything looks great. Then they will completely take him off the ECMO machine. They will then remove the cannula's, which are the tubes that are currently taking the blood out of his body to the ECMO machine and then taking the oxygenated blood back to the body. They will also rebuild the arteries and veins in the area the cannula's are in. The chest will remain open to compensate for any swelling that may occur. Up to this point we were able to pull any excess fluid off through the ECMO machine. Basically, once Coop is off the ECMO it will be like starting back where we expected to be right after surgery. So today will be a wait and see game and then tomorrow will be another day in surgery. I will try to keep everyone up to date throughout the day.