(From Jayden's CaringBridge Page)
Written Mar 7, 2010 10:22 pm
The
roller coaster continues. Again today has been a mixed bag but at least
it has been more good than bad. They tried a second attempt to trial
Jayden off the oscillating ventilator to a standard ventilator about
9:00 am & as of when we left at about 9:30 pm he was still on the
standard vent. His numbers have only been fair most of the day so they
are keeping the oscillating ventilator on standby in case he needs to go
back on it, but he was showing some improvement through the evening so
that was encouraging. There is some discussion that maybe we can look at
surgery by the end of the week but like everything it is a BIG maybe.
The
other area of concern is that he may have developed a condition called
Superior Vena Cava Syndrome (SVCS) as a side effect of the ECMO. The
superior vena cava is a large vein that transmits blood from the upper
body back to the heart. When there is a partial blockage or compression
it can cause symptoms like the swelling of the face & neck which he
is having now & has been getting worse through the weekend. The good
news is that if he is affected by SVCS is it rarely an emergency, but
they do want to resolve it as soon as possible. He is already on
diuretics & blood thinners so they may just give him a bit more time
to see if the medication clears the swelling on its own, if not then
they may have to consider a stent to keep the vein open. They will be
doing an ultrasound in the morning to see if that's what's causing all
the swelling.
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