update on Ella

Ella has been doing better today then yesterday, we almost took her to the ER last night after talking to the doctors in Dallas, because her resting heart rate was in the 180's and her normal resting heart rate is in the 80's-90's. It came down into the 160's after some time and we decided to put her to bed and see if once she fell asleep it would drop more.

 Once she fell asleep we checked her again and her heart rate was in the 130's her sleeping heart rate is usually in the 70's-80's so this was still concerning, but finally around 2:00 am her heart rate came down and mostly stayed under 120, we decided to keep her at home. At 3:30am her heart rate came down even more into the lower 100's and then was still holding there when we checked her again at 5:00am.

By 7:30am we got up to prepare for Dallas if needed, Ella's heart rate was in the 130's and she had a fever of 99. We gave her some ibuprofen for the low fever and I called Dallas again. They told us that her cardiologist wanted to keep her out of the children's hospital if at all possible so he wanted us to start with our family doctor and then once he checked her over we would decide if she needed to be in Dallas. So we took her to the doctor, they had us come in a side door and we were placed in a room right away to avoid contact with anyone that might be sick. We are blessed with a wonderful family doctor and a wonderful cardiologist!

At the doctor, even though she only had a temp of 99 that morning and had no other symptoms of sickness, we needed to rule everything out that we could, of course that meant checking ears, nasal swab, and labs. Ella was very scared, but did well and we were proud of her. We are praying hard we didn't pick up any germs while we were there!! All the tests came back normal.

I then called Dallas again to give them the update and find out if we were going to head to Dallas or not. Her cardiologist called me and we talked for a long time. He told us we could keep her at home since we have a monitor, but we are to watch her very closely. He is concerned, but the only thing we could really do at this point as admit her for observation and he feels like that is too high of a risk that she will get sick if we put her in a hospital. We don't want to put her in a hospital anyway unless it is absolutely necessary.

Her fever has been gone all day and her heart rate is significantly lower then it was yesterday although still elevated. Prayers are not only greatly appreciated, but they are needed! Ella's next step in figuring out her low oxygen levels is going to be a cath surgery. We don't know when it will be, we are praying we can hold it off to get as far out of the flu season as possible. More importantly we are praying for God's timing!

Ella's oxygen should stay above 85, but it is staying between 73-83 for the most part. We really don't know what's going on, but God does and we are trying to rest in that. God has been so good as to give me scriptures throughout yesterday and today that are speaking truth to my soul. I am so thankful for those hugs from my Jesus! We appreciate you all so much as you pray for our sunshine! I apologize for the lack of pictures recently, I have not been able to download any pics since we got our new laptop right after thanksgiving. I will try to figure it out soon. In the meantime I will post a picture that I already have and beg that as you look at her sweet face you send a prayer up for her! Thank you!