Sunday, September 20, 2009

the end of ecmo?

After seven days of ventilation, heavy drug therapies, and a slow decline, Ellis was put on ECMO (a heart-lung bypass machine) on September 4th. This machine will give his lungs a chance to heal. This treatment comes with serious complications like, bleeding on the brain.


While on the machine, Ellis has had to overcoming many set backs. He has had bouts of bleeding (thankfully, not on his brain), which required heparin to be stopped for sometime. Heparin is used to keep the blood from clotting while on ECMO and stopping its use rarely happens. Some parts of the machine had to be replaced because of the presence of blood clots. When this happened, the machine was stopped and Ellis was kept alive by hand bagging air into his lungs. The surgeon told us a few days after this event that, “Generally, sick lungs, bleeding and ECMO is a lethal combination. His nurses did a good job of getting him through that situation.” My heart sank! We are very lucky to have Ellis with us today.


After over two weeks of ECMO treatment, Ellis has started to show some signs of improvement. This is good news, but the ECMO machine is showing some signs of wear. So much that it has been recommended to either move him off of ECMO or replace the machine. The surgeon will make his decision on Monday or Tuesday.

3 comments:

  1. I've been following Ellis's progress through Sarah, Jennifer, and Margarita and have been thinking of you constantly. Hopefully journaling your experience, here, will prove to be somewhat therapeutic? Also, it's wonderful to see clear photograph of him... what a beauty.

    Lots of love,
    Meghan (Still)

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  2. Dear Christine and James,

    I know how agonizing these days have been for you. Our most positive thoughts are focused on Ellis's recovery right now. We love you, and if there is anything at all we can do from far away, please don't hesitate to ask. We love the picture, he's beautiful!!

    Love,
    Judi, TimO, Claire and Teo

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  3. This is the first time that I have seen him up close, and he is so beautiful! Many thoughts and prayers are directed towards you, James and Lilah. If you need anything, please let us know!
    Love,
    Jessie

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