June 30

Brian continues to remain stable. Yesterday, he had multiple CT scans for his head, chest, and abdomen.  Everything came back looking mostly as they anticipated. His brain looks clear of any blockage or internal bleeding, although, his sinuses have fluid building up around them. His chest showed his lungs looking quite damaged, as expected. His abdomen looked clear. The bleed that he had a week or so ago appears to have healed on its own. He is having some bleeding in his nose and did require a unit of blood. His doctor says that the bleeding is the result of the test he went through on Monday. She wasn't too concerned about the bleeding at this time. 

The main objective is to try and get more excess fluid off of Brian. If they are successful with the fluid reduction, they will likely go ahead with another test to see if Brian can come off of the VA ECMO machine on Friday. If he doesn't appear ready, then they will wait until Monday. She did say that when they do the test, it will be done for 1-2 hours rather than the standard 30 minutes. This makes me much more comfortable with the test. Last time, he didn't show distress until towards the end. They really need to make sure that his heart can handle not having the AV ECMO machine. It would be a real mess if they removed him from the machine and then he started having issues. I am concerned that the specialists wouldn't be able to get him back on before serious consequences took place. Brian's bilirubin is at 15.5.