Better News

Madeleine is still struggling with her blood pressure (dopamine is now at 14), but we learned some good news this afternoon. An echocardiagram revealed that the blood clot in Madeleine's heart has disapeared. There is still evidence of where the clot was located (I guess just a small bump) but the cardiologists believe that the majority of the clot was simply absorbed back into Madeleine's blood stream. This is great news as there was always a concern that the blood clot could become infected or could take off and cause problems in the body. With this off the table, its just one less hurdle for Madeleine to negotiate.

Other than that, Madeleine is still fighting to keep her blood pressure up and this is likely evidence that she is still fighting the infection. We'll get more information about the infection tomorrow when another CBC (blood test) is conducted. Until then, our hope is simply to keep her stable and hope that she can keep her blood pressure up and even wean a bit off the dopamine. As far as her breathing is concerned, they've weaned Madeleine completely off oxygen-- she's just breathing room air through the ventilator. The doctors won't consider weaning any further until she is done with the dopamine. They'll also keep Madeleine on a small morphine drip to keep her comfortable with the tube in her mouth.

In short: the only goal we have right now is to keep her blood pressure up and get her off dopamine. When this happens, we can be fairly confident that the infection is done.

Make sense? Thanks again for your concern and support.

Brent and Kirsten