In it to Win It

Warning Grammar probably stinks, I am exhausted so please bear with me.

That is the saying that our surgeon repeats often and right now that is what we are living by. Let's go on and get the day's news out of the way, Baby Cate is still on the machine, there were improvements, her "squeeze" or the pumping of her heart was better today than yesterday, but her volume of blood was not that great. The problem that still remains is the thickness of her septum wall, which is the wall of muscle in between the two ventricles is very thick, due to its thickness it still remains stiff from the surgery. The cardiologist, Dr. Dreyver, who was in the room today with our surgeon Dr. Salazar said that the stiffness is the last thing to work itself out. He is very hopeful that Cate can kick this on her own, which is very good news, and we are grateful for good news, I told Dr. Salazar as long as she is improving I want to continue with this course of action. The main concern is that she has been on Echmo for six full days now, and although Cate has been compliant for the most part it still is not good for her to be on a machine and so many medicines. They will try again tomorrow morning to ween her off the machine and I ask for hard core prayers, harder than ever before. The reason why I ask for a more intensified prayer is that the clock is starting to run out on us unfortunately. There is only so long that they are comfortable with a baby being on the Echmo machine due to the high risk of strokes, brain bleeds, and complications with her other major organs. Baby Cate's Surgeon and the Cardiologist that was in the room today are still optimistic that she can do this on her own, but the window is beginning to close, BUT THERE IS STILL TIME, and I told both of them that I believe in two things 1) my daughter, she is a Cantrell, so she is a bit stubborn and she will fight like hell before she throws in the towel and 2)I believe in a God who is bigger than all of us and bigger than any medical complication, so I know that He could literally just pass his hand over Baby Cate and she would be healed, to which they both agreed. Now, Ali and I have talked about this for the past couple of days and have decided its time to share it with all of you, our spiritual family. The cardiologist who was in Baby Cate's room this morning was Dr. Dreyver, he is the head of the Transplant Team at Texas Children's Hospital. He was there to take a look at Cate and her heart and to see what the likelyhood of her being a potential Transplant receipiant. We knew that the possibilty of this was coming and have just been pondering it in our hearts. We cannot wait until Cate's heart is not working anymore to start this process. The other issue is right now her brain is good, her lungs are good, her liver is good, her kidneys are good, if something goes wrong on the Echmo, the chances of her being a transplant recepient drop dramatically. So, we must start now, remember the hurricane analogy, well we are at home depot loading up on supplies. Now, with that being said Dr. Drevyer was very encouraged by what he saw Baby Cate's heart doing today and is not giving up on the fact that she may pull through this on her own. He said the best transplant there is today, is the one we never do. As parents, guardians, and decision makers for our sweet little girl we must start looking ahead in the event that her little heart just cannot function on its on. So we met with Dr. Drevyer for over an hour this afternoon, just learning all about heart transplants, what to expect and how drastically our life will be different if this is the road we must walk down. There are alot of issues that go with heart transplants, time of stay in Houston, family seperation, financial issues, rejection of the transplant heart, the possiblity of Cate's life being much shorter than the average kids, things that we never thought we would be facing, but we must, and we are, with hope. I do not want to go into all that transplants entail right now, because honestly we are focused on tomorrow, we are focused on praying for Baby Cate and that she has a full recovery and never has to endure all that comes with a transplant. The reason Ali and I felt like we needed to go to share this with all of you is that if this situation comes to be, I want you praying NOW for a new heart to be made available quickly and a good heart too, not a mean angry heart. If we must cross that bridge I will share more at that time, but for now Ali and I want to concentrate our prayers and attention on the next seventy-two hours, that is what we need. I know that all of you have been faithful to us and to our family and I ask that once again you kick it up a notch, we are now down to the wire and I believe that we can and will be faithful to the call that God has so so deeply place in so many peoples hearts to pray unceasingly for our Baby Cate. Let's make sure that Cate doesn't have to have a transplant, we believe in the God of Hope and Faitfulness and we stand firm in that belief and ask that you stand with us. The operation to ween her off should begin around 8:00am tomorrow morning and will be a couple of hours. As soon as I know something I will let you know. We love you guys very much!