Cautiously Optimistic

It has been a whirlwind of a week so far! Our emotions have been up and down and sometimes feel like we are on a merry-go-round! I wanted to give an update since it's been a couple of days. First I wanted to say thank you! For all the facebook messages, comments, and texts. I wish I could respond to everyone but I just don't have the brain power yet but know that I appreciate the support and encouragement.

Yesterday was definitely an up and down day emotionally. Tuesday night was a tough night for Holt. The cath. procedure went great and bless his little heart he is a fighter. We were told he started "shunting" through the PDA vessile (the vessile he was born with that they have been keeping open with medication).  We are hopeful that after the PDA closes this problem will resolve.  There is still talk about when we are going to close the PDA, the are not wanting to rush the process and want to allow his heart to heal from the cath. procedure.

Dr. Day (cardiologist) came yesterday afternoon and gave us an update. He said he is very pleased with the progress we've made. We talked about the first time he saw us the left vent. muscle was not moving at all and now it's moving. After the cath. the pressures in the vent. went from really high to almost normal! That's a small victory that we are rejoicing about. We also talked about 3 different roads we can go down, but won't know for a couple more days. Right now they are just watching him very closely. He did say that we are over the hurdle of "emergency surgery", though the Norwood procedure is still on the table we don't have an emergent need for it anymore. He said that he is cautiously optimistic about Holt.

Josh and I went down for a little while this morning and got another good report. They did an echo this morning and he was taken off the medicine that was keeping the PDA open. Around 3 this afternoon they are going to do another echo to see how he is doing. So far all his stats on the monitors look good and he seems to be tolerating it well. After the echo this afternoon they are going to talk about taking him on the respirator. He is having some pulmonary hypertension, which we have been told is a normal reaction to all that he is going through. They are giving him medication to help control that and the worse case senerio is we will have to be on the medication when we go home.

Last night they started feeding him with breast milk. He is tolerating it very well and this morning they increased the amount they are giving him. He was not urinating so on Tuesday night they placed a cath. in to help him urinate. This morning they have taken it out and he was placed on Lasix to help him start to urinate and also he is having fluid retention and this will help keep that low.

We don't have the report from the echo performed this morning but the cardio NP stopped by while we were in the NICU and she said she doesn't know much about the results but Dr. Laird has said it was good, but will come explain in detail to us this afternoon. 

Right now Josh and I are in my room resting, I am having a good day today. We got a good nights sleep last night and have been resting a lot today. They are planning on discharging me tomorrow sometime. Which I am excited about but know it's going to be an adjustment to live outside a hospital. I'm sure I'll figure out how!

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. We are by no means anywhere close to out of the woods but it's a good day!