10 am Updates

The morning was going well when, just after 8am, his nurse Erin noticed that his heart rate was a little low. She said he very quickly decompensated after that. They immediately started chest compressions and, since his chest wall is open anyway, took off the bandage and started cardiac massage. They believe he had good blood flow to his brain the whole time they were ressuscitating (they have a monitor that detects cerebral blood flow specifically). Since he did not immediatly respond, they put him on ECMO. With ECMO, his blood is being pumped through his body by a pump that also oxygenates it. His heart is still beating and they are telling us doing a good job and adding to what the pump is doing. They can use this time on ECMO to "skinny him up" as Dr. Bichell put it. His blood is heparinized (blood thinner) so the possibility of bleeding is high, especially in sensitive places like his brain.

The Praises:
-EVerything happened at 8am when the night team and day team's were on the unit so there were 4 cardiologists, 3 critical care docs, multiple fellows and Dr. Bichell all at the bedside within minutes
-It was 18 minutes from the start of CPR to when he was fully on ECMO--a hospital record as far as they can tell
-Even now, they are seeing his heart pump and it is doing pretty good.
-Vickie up from the church here in Donelson quickly came over to the house and Zach was oblivious to the fact that Daddy and Nana quickly left him
-Our pastor, Eugene, was already driving to be with us when all of this unfolded
-You are reading this, you care about us and Luke

Our prayer:
Today we see how tenuous Luke's life is. While we are praying for a long life for him and life more abundant than all we can imagine, our peace is knowing that God has had all of this planned since the beginning. And while Luke's life hangs in balance, for all of us today could be our last day as well. GOd sent his own son to suffer in our place so that we--including baby Luke--would not have to endure eternal suffering. If you have never come to understand that miracle and mystery, please consider it today. In Romans it says that "while we (including Luke!) were yet sinners Christ died for us" and yet we are promised eternal life if we only believe that Christ paid the ultimate price for us. Justin and I cannot imagine enduring this if we did not believe that.