Written Jan 21, 2014 1:44pm by Megan Richardson

Porter has had an eventful morning. They tried changing the vent he was on to give his lungs a break but he was not tolerating this well as his pressures kept going down so he’s back on the old one for now.

The docs want to restore a normal sinus rhythm instead of the junctional rhythm he has been in. They’re trying a couple different ways of pacing his heart. The first method involves feeding a tube down his esophagus that has an electrical current going through it.

This is supposed to stimulate his heart and return it to normal sinus rhythm. The 1st attempt didn’t work and they will be trying a different device to see if that does the trick. If that doesn’t work then they’re going to talk with us about putting wires in his chest to pace

it. They are trying to get him back into a normal sinus rhythm because the atria and ventricles are not talking to each other in the junctional rhythm. He has had trouble maintaining a steady bpbut they were giving him some blood when we stepped out for lunch which seems to be helping. Never a dull moment.