Fri, Nov 9th

We were called early in the morning on Friday at the RMDH by one of Noa's rotating surgeons. He was asking our permission to perform an operation on her neck. They wanted to 'open up' the area around the cannula to see where the bleeding was coming from and if they could do something to stop it. We gave the "OK" and waited anxiously to go to morning rounds.

When we arrived at the hospital, they were still setting up for the procedure, and it started around the same time morning rounds occurred. They never move Noa, so the room that is our normal 'hang out' with her was closed up, and quickly became an operating room. The glass door was shut and many people dressed in blue caps, face masks and robes floated around the room, attending to little Noa.

After the brief catch up from the night before (summing up the need to address the bleeding, the infection she contracted and the fluid she's been taking on from the circuit change) we went to a conference room to wait to hear from the surgeon. About an hour later, he popped in and informed us that, sure enough, when he opened the neck, it looked like there was some 'stretching' of her arterial vein where the cannula enters her neck and a hole in the vein as well. He was able to stitch it up tighter and it appeared as if the bleeding had stopped. Her vitals were good throughout the procedure and she appeared 'comfortable'. What a relief...we let out a big sigh and thank you to God.

We went in to see Noa and although she didn't look as good as she did just a day ago, we were relieved that they resolved the bleeding issue. Its been a long 24 hrs. Now that this is dealt with, they are focusing on trying to get the blood thinners balanced again with Noa and the ECMO circuit. They had decreased her anti-clotting meds to slow the bleeding in her neck, but that allows the tubing in the ECMO circuit to run a higher risk of clotting (thus needing another circuit change). Once they get that figured out, they will put her back on dialysis and deal with how extremely swollen she is. Another very serious problem is an infection she's been dealing with. They are trying to identify it so they can use the right antibiotics to treat the infection.

By the time we went for an evening visit, they had identified the infection and found it to be non-resistant...meaning there are antibiotics out there that can combat the infection. So we will wait for that issue to be resolved! We are regaining some ground and pray for no more bumps. They are thinking they might try to trial her off of ECMO some time early next week.