Memories

ECMO was tested on lambs, so every ECMO patient is given a lamb. Apparently, if the hospital has run out of lambs, they will go buy them immediately as needed. Since Ayden has been on ECMO, he too has a lamb.

I couldn't resist taking the above pictures last night because he looked so sweet holding his lamb. (Actually, the lamb is holding him... perhaps some irony there.)

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Dr. Bichell closed Ayden's chest today. I am convinced that Ayden wanted it closed yesterday, but the OR team was unable to make it happen with their already weary schedule. Now that his chest is closed, they will work toward weaning him from the ventilator. Ayden hates being intubated, so I know he won't miss that. 

Katrina, one of Dr. Bichell's two nurses, came to also remove Ayden's PD drain (which was originally located right above his diaper). Since fluid was no longer draining from the tube after ECMO, they were able to remove it. As you can see, Ayden is looking much skinnier from all of the much-needed fluid drainage over the past few days.

BEFORE CHEST CLOSURE

AFTER CHEST CLOSURE & PD DRAIN REMOVAL

(Obviously, he is still a bit schnockered from the medication for the chest closure.
You can see Champ, the Vanderbilt Children's mascot, helping to prop up his legs.)

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These were pictures taken the evening before Ayden's frantic return to the PCCU. We are all eager to see that little boy again. Though we have no way of knowing what Ayden's baseline will be after all of this, we are hopeful that the point of the chaos was to remove the scary hovering of an SVT. What's an SVT? As Bryan's dad says, hopefully, "it's a memory."