Get Me Off This Crazy Thing!

Seems to be what Justice is telling us. Most people who end up on ECMO have weak hearts as well as lungs. Justice's heart has never been a problem. It's always been strong, and, in fact, it was a bonus when he was placed on ECMO. Early this morning an air bubble appeared in the machine. ECMO responded like it was supposed to and shut itself off. The machine was reset and when they unclamped the lines Justice's heart pumped so hard against the machine it made it run backwards. Everybody was baffled. Attendings were called in in the middle of the night to help. During the 45 minutes it took to figure things out, Justice was essentially off ECMO and his heart was actually doing some of the work for the machine. They said he did great and tolerated it well. If he had a weak heart, he wouldn't have tolerated it. Thank you Lord for giving him a strong heart!

There are still more clots forming in the lines, and right now we are doing another trial run to see how he does. He's not at the perfect place to pull him off ECMO but he's a lot better than yesterday and at this point, because he is so close to being at that perfect place, switching the machine and risking a reaction from him would be worse than taking him off. So,if he does well during the trial run, the surgeons will be called and whenever they can get here, he'll be taken off.
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