Preparing for surgery!

Milo had a pretty good 2nd night! He is stable enough on ECMO that the team is planning on performing his hernia repair surgery this morning (!!!)

He was put on a steroid last night to help with general stress relief in his body (stabilize vitals, reduces his puffiness, etc). But his ECMO pump is looking good, his kidneys are still doing really good (kidney function is always something to watch on ECMO), brain is looking good, and he’s having a new head ultrasound done to double check things. He’s wiggling around quite a bit this morning! All things considered he’s doing good right now - hence why he’s ready for the surgery!

Doing the operation should allow everything to expand (his little left lung, even his right lung, and also give his heart space). He’ll end up with another chest tube on the left side which will stay until he comes off ECMO, they’ll do an incision on his tummy to pull the organs down from the chest to the abdomen, repair the hole in the diaphragm with a patch, and put a temporary “silo” in place to allow the organs to expand outside his body since there won’t be enough room right away in the abdominal cavity. The silo could stay there for ~3-4 weeks. Should be a 3 hour operation from start to finish and they do it right in his room!

Please keep Milo in your thoughts today and pray that everything goes smoothly!