The Fighter...

Matthew had a pretty good day today. His Doctors are still trying to find the right balance between ventilator settings, blood volume and medications. Because of this his stats were all over today with his carbon dioxide levels trending a little high and his oxygen saturation and urine output trending a little low. The Doctors aren't overly concerned at this point because he's barely 24 hours out of surgery but they'll want these numbers to improve tomorrow.

Once Matthew recovers from surgery his oxygen saturation is what will be monitored the most leading up to his 2nd surgery which will be between 3 and 4 months of age. Ideally we'll take him home with oxygen saturation levels in the mid 70's which is where he started today. When we left he was in the upper 60's.

Matthew continued to try to breathe on his own most of this morning taking a half breath in between each full breath from the ventilator. Around noon they increased his paralytic medicine and Matthew relaxed and let the ventilator breathe for him.

We're praying that Matthew starts to stabilize tomorrow so his Doctors can focus on the next step which is reducing some of his swelling and getting his chest closed. This will hopefully happen sometime between Thursday and Saturday this week.

Amy and I are holding in here ok. Every time we walk in his room and see his little body with his chest open we talk about those little bright eyes that would stare back into ours when we talked to him during the last few days before surgery or how he would completely relax when his Mom would rub his feet and then fuss as soon as she stopped. We want to see those eyes again.