Kaelyn goes back into surgery...

Well this morning they did an ultra sound on Kaelyn and found that the blood flow through the main artery is non-existant. They need to go back in to do some exploritory surgery to see why there is no blood flow. She is scheduled to go in today around 1PM. The surgery will most likley take 4 hours or so. We are anxious to see this part of the transplant over and behind us. We will post more as we know more.

Breathing tube out...

They removed Kaelyn's breathing tube at about 5 PM today. She is breathing on her own and doing pretty well. She did need a blood transfusion this evening her hematocrit was at 17, which is very low. She is having a little excess drainage from her site that is causing her hematocrit to drop a bit. The surgeons are going to take a look at that, but they believe it is probably just from the blood thinners that she is on. It will take them a little bit to discover the perfect balance of the thinners to put her on.

Other than those minor things, she is doing very well. The nurses keep commenting on how well she is doing in comparison to other liver transplant patients, so that is keeping our spirits up.

I will write later.

Kaelyn

Wade and I went to see Kaelyn this morning. She is doing remarkably well. All of her counts are heading in the right direction. The nurse said that she is very fiesty and strong willed. She said that Kaelyn woke up this morning and acted like she was done with all this mess and was ready to walk on out the door! Unfortunately, we can't have her moving around that much, so they had to sedate her (the nurse said it took quite a bit of medicine, because she was fighting it so much). All of the doctors and nurses say that in their experience that the fiesty ones recover much quicker. The nurse said that her liver function was doing very well.

They do need to bring her Hematocrit (red blood cell) count down. It is at 50 right now and they want it to be around 35. A higher concentration of red blood cells means the blood is thicker and more viscous which creates a higher chance of clots. So they are going to remove some blood and replace it with Albumin, which is a plasma derivitive without the platelets (clotting factor). They also are going to try and remove her breathing tube later on today.

She is doing so good. Heavenly Father is surely looking out for our girl. We have realized so many blessings in the past 24 hours. Thank you all for your prayers and support. We will definitely keep this site updated as often as possible.

Angie

Out of surgery, again...

Kaelyn came out of surgery for the second time at about 3:00 AM this morning. Dr. Healey, the surgeon, said that all went very well. Kaelyn did wonderful, and her blood flow is looking a lot better. They rerouted the main artery because there was a blood clot in the main portal vein from the first surgery. He said that everything looked fine though after the second surgery. She is on some blood thinners, just in case.

Surgery Update

Kaelyn was out of surgery by 8:30 PM tonight. We were all very suprised to have it be finished so quickly. The surgeon said that she did great. The tumor was huge, but it looks like he was able to remove it all. The new liver went in very smoothly and actually looked like it was beginning to function.

We were soon settling into bed when we received a page from the ICU at about 11:00 PM. We were informed that Kaelyn needed to go back into surgery. Her main portal vein was not showing good enough blood flow. So they needed to go back in and reconstruct and redirect the vein to the main portal artery. She is still in surgery right now, it is about 1:30 AM on Sunday. We have received an update from the OR and she is doing fine. We don't know how much longer she will be in surgery. I will write again after she comes out.