Alexis I''m so sorry, I hope and pray that she gets better. It breaks my heart to read shes not responding to well but we will continue with prayers. I see her picture and shes so beautiful. (((hugs)))
Oh man Alexis. I''m sorry to hear the new treatment stopped working. Thanks for posting a picture. She is a beautiful little girl. I''ll continue to hope for a miracle.
Thank you all who are praying for her and keeping her in your thoughts. Its hard to deal with. Its hard to see her all swollen and her face is all puffed up when you know what she is really like and what she should look like.
She is still alive at this point, that is reason enough not to give up hope! Until I hear otherwise, I will continue to pray for her, her family, and the health care team.
Date: 2/24/2009 4:14:09 PM Author: Winks_Elf
She is still alive at this point, that is reason enough not to give up hope! Until I hear otherwise, I will continue to pray for her, her family, and the health care team.
Exactly, you cant lose faith. The amazing power of having her family and friends present, even if its by her bedside, cannot be underestimated. I''ll keep her in my thoughts, Alexis. Stay strong for her.
oh sweetie, i''m so sorry to hear about all this. This sounds so much like what happened to my dad, with the internal bleeding with no cause, the factor seven, and then we tried some experimental treatment. Unfortunately for us it wasn''t enough, but he had been sick for many many years. Your boyfriend''s niece is still young and children''s bodies can be so amazingly resilient. Please take care of everyone.
I''m just seeing this thread now, and I am so sorry for her and her family. You''ll all be in my thoughts...she sounds like a fighter, so I hope she will continue to fight.
Alexis, I am so sorry to hear about this. I have faith that she''ll pull through. A child''s body is very resilient. She can do this. I''ll keep praying for her. You''re all in my thoughts!
On Monday, Katie was treated with a blood clotting agent to help clot her blood (Factor 7), and had a ''bronch'' (don''t ask me to spell it out!) where they were able to get some of the ''gunk'' out of her lungs. It was nice to know that there were about 8 doctors and nurses in there with her to make sure it went well. These procedures were very tricky and could have been fatal. Katie flew through them with flying colors, but not without the prayers and love from all of her family and friends.
After the Factor 7 was administered, we had to wait to see if it would effect her ECMO (if you don'' know what that is, look it up!!! -- no seriously, it is sort of like your own blood transfusion -- her blood was taken out, cycled through a machine that oxygenated it and recycled back in). Katie was on this machine for 13 days. That is a really long time to be on ECMO. It was very scary because any slight move of her head could have pulled out the tubes. She did really well with everything on Monday. Then we got the news on Tuesday that if Katie was not taken off of ECMO, she would bleed to death. While on the ECMO, she was on blood thinners which caused her vessels to bleed out (which in turn ended up bleeding out of her 3 chest tubes). She lost a lot of blood. With God''s good grace, on Tuesday, she was successfully taken off of ECMO and transitioned onto an oscilator (a ventilator for people with very bad lungs). Not one person in the hospital expected Katie to survive any of the procedures she has come up against.
God is answering all our prayers.....so keep em coming!!!
I actually slept decent last night....which is a good sign....
That was one of my biggest worries, 13 days is a really long time to be on ECMO (for people who don't know, it is similar to what they use for cardiac bipass surgery. They use a machine to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide outside of your body. Your blood comes out of your body, goes through this big machine, gets exchanged, and than goes back into your body. It takes the work away from the lungs, this is the most aggressive and risky means of life support in neonatal/pediatric intensive care). It is also good that she is off ECMO because as you said, they don't need to use the blood thinners anymore which, combined with her sepsis, put her at very high risk for bleeding. I am sooooo happy.
Just so you know, the ossicilator is a good ventilator for what she needs, but is hard to tolerate. All the shaking agitates them a lot, and she is going to probably going to continue to be hard to control and need lots of medications.
But she is going the right way, I hope they can get her onto a regular ventilator soon so that they can let her wake up a little.
Overall, I am very happy to hear some good news, and I hope that Katie keeps fighting like she has been.
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