Hi Loved Ones,
We are doing well, especially considering the events of the last 10 days. To recap, last Tuesday, the doctors at Cornell were concerned with Ellis's progress, and he was transferred uptown to the NICU at Columbia Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital at 165th and Broadway. Ellis was brought there to be evaluated for ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), a procedure which essentially takes over respiration for a patient and allows his lungs to sit idle and recover. The prospect of putting Ellis on ECMO was very scary, and Columbia Presbyterian is the only hospital in the city that has it. However, as hours passed and his condition improved, his candidacy was pushed farther away.
Much of Ellis's trouble has been the result of severe meconium aspiration as well as air that was trapped outside of his lung further troubling his respiratory system (this is called a pneumothorax, or, in lay terms, a collapsed lung). While he was kept on much of the same machinery at Columbia Presbyterian that he used at Cornell, Ellis has thrived up here.
We've found, in our brief but extensive tour of the city's NICUs, the prevailing attitude among doctors is that the baby dictates the progress - this is to say, Ellis is in charge. He has shown the tremendous team of doctors and nurses (in addition to his awestruck parents) that he is up to the challenge of recovery. Ellis has gone from oscillating ventilator, to standard respirator, to CPAP, (considered the last step before breathing without mechanical assistance) all as of 2 days ago.
To facilitate updates on Ellis Wren's progress, we've created a blog (click on it to go there):
http://elliswren.blogspot.com/
which we urge you to read. In addition to posts, there are pictures and, possibly, video.
Your thoughts and words following our last post were a huge boon for Ellis and family. Thank you so much.
Love,
Andrew, Joan and Ellis
