Day 12

Grace had her right chest tube placed today and they looked down her throat with the camera to see if they could see anything that was blocking her lungs from opening. She did very well for the chest tube and bronch, and they have drained quite a bit of fluid from around her right lung already. They did not see thick secretions like they thought they might, so they know taht that is not an issue right now. After the fluid came out, she started having some small volumes in her lungs, hopefully they continue to get better and we can start trialing off ECMO and coming off for good. It's day 12 for ECMO as well. She rested most of the rest of the day, opening her eyes momentarialy and sticking her tongue out when they repositioned her. I wonder if she will do that at home. Tomorrow they will start to condtion her lungs more, and try to get them working. They want to give her the time she needs and not push her, but at the same time, she needs to be getting a move on with getting off ECMO. She's back down to close to her birth weight so that's good that so much fluid has been taken off. So her day was pretty good, even though she had to get the chest tube and bronch, she was still doing really good.