Stent

Jensen had a stent placed in his pulmonary artery today. This was the cause of the uneven blood flow to the lungs. The stent will not grow with him, so there may be a need to re-cath him as he grows and enlarge it. However, we might not need to do this before his next surgery, it all depends on his growth. They also tried to look into his right arm where he had many collateral vessels form (tiny blood vessels instead of one big one). As I mentioned before, the inominate artery coming off of the aorta was also narrow, causing decreased blood flow to the arm. To counter this, his body made a lot of small blood vessels in the arm. Later, they may want to go in and stent the inominate artery, but for now, they left it alone.

The plan for the rest of the week is to let him recover from the cath today and continue with diuretics to get the swelling down. Dr. Fuller wants to try to wean him off of ECMO again on Friday. We spent the later part of the day loving on him, talking to him, and kissing his face off (now that the EEG leads are gone there's room for kisses!).

Jensen also gave us a surprise today! We were by his bed talking away and he opened his eyes! Not just a puny little blink either. He opened his eyes big and wide and stayed that way for a long time. Of course this made me cry instantly because his big blue eyes are so beautiful! He looked at  us as we talked to him and he even tracked me when I moved around. That was such a blessing =) I'm pretty sure I have the cutest, sweetest kid on the planet!

It was definitely a long, exhausting day. We had no idea how hard this would be and it is taking its toll on Jeremy and I.