Brea is doing great! She has a fever but the doctors say that it is to be expected after this type surgery. She is WIDE AWAKE and begging for a swab by signing "more". Today she woke up and decided that she was going home and it took three adults to hold her down. They are having a tough time keeping her sedated but I think they have finally found a combination that is working for her. They have told us that she may come off the ventilator tomorrow and they think she might get the three chest tubes out then also. They will start feeding her again in the morning through a feeding tube if she continues to do as well as she has for the past twenty four hours.
Today we learned of a website (UNOS) that keeps track of people waiting for organ transplants. We did a search by state and it appears that Brea is the only pediatric patient with the B+ blood type waiting for a heart here in Arkansas. Of course the hospital has the capability of going within a 1500 mile radius to harvest an organ. We've asked what would happen if a heart became available that was a perfect match and we were told that they would take her to the OR and do the transplant.
Today was a very sad day here in the CVICU. Little Judah fought a good fight but in the end God decided that he had suffered long enough and He called him home to Heaven. Judah's parents were such an inspiration to the other families here in the waiting room where we all live and they will be missed. They had been here for three months and in those three months they touched many lives and shared God's word with many. We will always be in touch with them and will always remember the little boy that brought them into our lives. Please be in prayer for them.
As I say goodnight I'd like to ask you to pray for Brea to continue to make improvements. Please pray that her fever breaks and her vent tube and chest tubes can be removed sometime tomorrow. Please also keep the medical staff in your prayers that God will use them as His instruments to care for Brea.
Brea just after surgery. That is the Berlin Heart sitting on her pelvic area. The canulas are covered with the Blue cloths. They enter her chest just under her rib cage and are stitched into her heart with hundreds of stitches.
The Berlin Heart. The clear tube coming from the bottom it connected to a machine (air compressor) and a laptop computer that tells it how many times to pump per minute.
A close up of the Berlin Heart. The canula on the bottom in pumping the blood from the left ventrical and the the canula on the top is pumping the blood into the Aorta.
