Chest is Closed

November 25th 2022, 3:40pm

Zeke had another rough night with his blood pressure and temperature being unstable. This was to be expected with his chest being closed. It will take him a bit of time to adjust to the new pressures in his heart with a closed sternum. His white blood count continues to increase which is indicative of some sort of infection. They cultured from the first blood drawn 2 days ago and it produced nothing and so the team has drawn more blood to redo the cultures.

At the moment they are also trying to balance keeping Zeke stable enough to wean off the muscle relaxant which will enable them to slowly wean him off the ventilator. Right now each attempt to wean decreases his blood pressure, oxygen saturation and mixed venous oxygen saturation levels.

Pray that he stabilizes enough for him to tolerate being off the muscle relaxer for a good 24 hours without any episodes leading to low pressures or oxygen levels. Pray that he continues to diurese to help eliminate the excess fluid. Pray his temperature stabilizes, it continues to drop.

Ephesians 4:4-8 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”