Cali is 16 weeks, weighs 8 lbs 10 oz. , and is 2 weeks post transplant. Cardiovascular standpoint, she is doing amazing and is officially off all the heart support IV medicine. It’s surreal to see her heart rate at a normal range and see the most simple results, from a good heart, like having to cut her fingers nails for the first time last week. For those who don’t know, Cali’s EF prior to transplant was 5-10% and now is 60-65%. It’s insane her previous heart was profusioning her body with such little output. Imagine pouring a full glass of water, then empty that out to 60% full. That’s how much water you would typically drink to stay alive. Now take that same glass but empty it out to where only 5% of the water remains and that’s all you have to drink. That’s the percentage of blood her heart was pumping to keep her body and organs alive. So, to say simply, she’s doing much better now.
On the weaning IV sedation process, this has been a tough week. She has made some progress but seeing her go through withdrawals is extremely hard to watch. Sweating, body tremors, eyes roll back in her head, hands shake, head shakes, fast shallow breathing, throwing up, diarrhea, etc ……. She’s been on such high amounts of sedation and pain medicines for so long now that she’s dependent on them. Early this week, they were planning on extubating her again today but due to the severe withdraw symptoms, and not wanting to set her up for failure, the conversation changed to not having a current timeline to try again. She is passing all of her CPAP trials, showing her lungs are working well. Today was a good day with less severe withdrawals and her tolerating her feeds again but at a very small amount. We were warned about this process being more difficult than the heart transplant but still hard to know exactly what to expect.
As always, thank you everyone who continues to pray for our Cali and keeping her in your thoughts. The prayers are being answered and we are getting one step closer to her coming home. #TeamCali #heartwarrior