PICU day 3

The good news of the day is that Micah's internal oxygen saturation levels are going up, meaning his heart is doing a good job of pumping oxygen to his brain, kidneys, etc. The price he's paying for that is that his heart rate is still quite high (currently 195 and it's been up to 206 beats per minute). It's too high for the pacemaker to take over (he "competes against it").

The surgeon is going to do an exploratory surgery here in the PICU tomorrow at 2:00ish. If she can close his chest after that, she will. But she doesn't feel comfortable closing his chest with his heart rate as high as it is. So please pray that his heart rate would go down overnight. It's possible that some of the leads, etc., inside are irritating his heart so taking some of the stuff out might help lower his heart rate.
** I typed that earlier, and I just called his nurse to ask about him before I go to bed, and his heart rate has slowed enough that they're now able to pace him at 170. Praise God! I think that's still too high for the surgeon to close his chest, but it's a lot better than 200.

When I was getting ready to leave this evening, Micah's blood pressure started increasing and his attending thought he might have some junk in his lungs. That did not appear to be the problem. But they've given him more pain medication and it appears to be lowering his blood pressure so the little guy's pain level was probably too high and that was causing his blood pressure to go up. Oh, how I wish I could just fix him up and take him home.

Micah's cardiologist from the valley called me in the room today just to check in. She'll be here in Milwaukee tomorrow so she's planning to stop by. It was very kind of her to call and check in.

I'll try to update after the exploratory is finished. Thanks for your prayers, everyone.