Thaddeus Update 9

Surgery Moved Up. Maybe.

 Yesterday Thaddeus' numbers took a turn for the worse. He was retaining water and very bloated. Since Thaddeus has only one chamber of his heart to pump, his body and the lungs are in a fight to see which one will get the blood. As it turns out, his lungs were wining. What we want is a balance. The blood was getting oxygen in it, but the oxygen was not getting to the cells. So while the cells usually make energy using oxygen, they could not so they started to make energy without using oxygen. One of the side effects of this is lactic acid. When you exercise hard, your muscle cells will make more energy for you both with and without oxygen. When you are done you feel soreness in your muscles. This is from the lactic acid that builds up. Normally your body dissipates this. In Thaddeus' case, most all of the body was making acid and with the heart pumping inefficiently, there was no way for the body to get rid of this acid. They were pushing fluids to help the heart work better, but he was retaining the fluids causing the bloating. The attending physician was very concerned and took a number of steps to help Thaddeus out. He was placed on a diuretic to help him pass the fluids better. He was given a drug to help the heart beat more efficiently. He also continued to receive morphine to help keep his blood vessels relaxed. They gave him sodium bicarbonate (Alka - Seltzer) to help reduce the acid in the body. He was also given a salt water solution. This was to help keep things moving and keep his airways clear. As things became more serious, The attending physician decided to chemically paralyze Thaddeus and heavily sedate him. They also put him 100% on the breathing machine. Additionally he was given a catheter. The idea being that he has absolutely no work to do besides getting his heart to pump. As the night wore one, the indicators we were watching began to improve. We also still had no sign of infection. At about 11:00 the attending physician came in and gave us two thumbs up. They also decided that Thaddeus was at a good enough spot to go ahead with surgery and waiting another day would not have sufficient benefits. So we are looking at him going into surgery in a few hours.

The dolls were made by, and represent, the five other siblings.

Almost ready for surgery.