5pm

Kristen has had a pretty exciting afternoon. She was calm for the remainder of the morning, but early afternoon her heart rate jumped to over 180, and sustained 170+ for the better part of a couple of hours. They gave her a drug to stop her heart (or pause it in their words). They did this procedure twice, the first time it dropped as low as 108 before climbing back to 175, and the second time it made it as low as 80 before going back to 175. The doctor said she had never seen that before - it "always pauses". Perhaps the others hadn't started from such a high point. Over the past few hours her rate has come back down to the high 150s, and she is still running a bit of a fever.

With her heart rate so high, her blood pressure has dropped but is holding above the alarm points at about 85/50. She has also run a fever the majority of the afternoon. They turned the oxygen up on the ventilator to 80% to maintain good oxygen saturation. With her heart beating so fast, it doesn't have enough time to completely fill with blood and therefore the low BP and increased need for oxygen.

Her belly has been somewhat distended this afternoon too, so they did an ultrasound and x-ray to see if there were any obstructions. They didn't see any but for now will stop feeding her and place a tube back in her stomach in hopes to relieve some of the pressure.

Dr. Popat stopped by this afternoon, he told us to hang in there, that Kristen is their favorite upstairs and she needs to get better soon. He confirmed our thoughts on the blood work in that the fever will cause her counts to drop some, and the marrow will take a bit of a down turn during this time.

It seems like it has been one thing after another this afternoon, but please continue the same prayers from earlier today but specifically pray for improvement in her heart rate, blood pressure and breathing.

God Bless!

Devin.