Update on Sarah
Written Jul 12, 2012 8:02am by Heather Dalik
This is Debbie's update on Sarah (from yesterday) Please pray for our fighter. She has so much life left to live. She must beat this cancer and the monster chemo.
The last two days have been extremely difficult days. On Tuesday morning we had to make a decision to help Sarah's heart to work. She became so sick that her heart was laboring to work and her breathing became rapid that she had to have a breathing tube put in. When they did this early Tues. Morning her heart stopped and she had to be defibrillated. Then all the doctors came in and we talked for an hour about how best to help her. The doctors talked about an ECMO
(google it) it does the function of the heart , life support, so the heart can rest, or did she suffer too much trauma from the chemo to get past this. We said we have go in and ask Sarah. Sarah couldn't talk because of the tube in her mouth but she could blink and squeeze Dan's hand. Dr. Gamper explained what he wanted to try and he asked her if she wanted to fight? We asked her a couple times to answer and I asked her to blink her eyes 3 times if she wanted to try the ECMO and she blinked and squeezed Daddy's hand and pursed her lips and tried to speak and Dr. Gamper said "well that was a loud and clear Yes" .
She is a fighter and did we expect anything else! So that set the doctors off and running to get this set up. This took most of the day to get set up. Very complicated machines. They also set up a Plasma aspheresis, which is similar to what Dan did for Sarah in Memphis with the NK Cells extraction. It takes out Sarah's plasma and replaces hers with someone else's. The Dialysis machine also connects to the ECMO machine. We thought things would quiet down last night so we could get some rest but at 11 pm she was having fluid around the heart and she had to have a Pericardiosentesis, Which is when the fluid around the heart has to be aspirated. That was finished about 12:30 am. This morning, Wed. They did another exray and sonogram and found fluid around the lungs so it was another long day of working to help her with the tubes and machines and blood pressure meds and around 4 the tubes were placed in her chest to drain the fluids away from her lungs. That took a couple hours to complete and they have to balance the blood pressure while draining fluids which was very tricky. So much sickness flowed away. The left ventricle of the heart is still weak and doesn't squeeze hard enough to pump so they will administer some meds later tonight if the BP meds are lessened that will give some support there. Now it's 10:50 pm and the team is moving around moving things. Her blood pressure is a-little high now. It seems to be one or the other. We are hoping for a boring nite.
We love you and thank you for your strength and love and prayers. Thank you for the tributes to The CaringBridge in honor of sweet Sarah and all your prayers and notes.
(google it) it does the function of the heart , life support, so the heart can rest, or did she suffer too much trauma from the chemo to get past this. We said we have go in and ask Sarah. Sarah couldn't talk because of the tube in her mouth but she could blink and squeeze Dan's hand. Dr. Gamper explained what he wanted to try and he asked her if she wanted to fight? We asked her a couple times to answer and I asked her to blink her eyes 3 times if she wanted to try the ECMO and she blinked and squeezed Daddy's hand and pursed her lips and tried to speak and Dr. Gamper said "well that was a loud and clear Yes" .
She is a fighter and did we expect anything else! So that set the doctors off and running to get this set up. This took most of the day to get set up. Very complicated machines. They also set up a Plasma aspheresis, which is similar to what Dan did for Sarah in Memphis with the NK Cells extraction. It takes out Sarah's plasma and replaces hers with someone else's. The Dialysis machine also connects to the ECMO machine. We thought things would quiet down last night so we could get some rest but at 11 pm she was having fluid around the heart and she had to have a Pericardiosentesis, Which is when the fluid around the heart has to be aspirated. That was finished about 12:30 am. This morning, Wed. They did another exray and sonogram and found fluid around the lungs so it was another long day of working to help her with the tubes and machines and blood pressure meds and around 4 the tubes were placed in her chest to drain the fluids away from her lungs. That took a couple hours to complete and they have to balance the blood pressure while draining fluids which was very tricky. So much sickness flowed away. The left ventricle of the heart is still weak and doesn't squeeze hard enough to pump so they will administer some meds later tonight if the BP meds are lessened that will give some support there. Now it's 10:50 pm and the team is moving around moving things. Her blood pressure is a-little high now. It seems to be one or the other. We are hoping for a boring nite.
We love you and thank you for your strength and love and prayers. Thank you for the tributes to The CaringBridge in honor of sweet Sarah and all your prayers and notes.
Be CORAgeous!
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