Little Bella has captured the hearts of our family and everyone that meets her. We want to share her story with all.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Swine Flu and Puzzling Bella

We live in Houston.  The very first death from the swine flu (or the PC term, North American influenza) here in the US was right here in the medical center.  It was a sweet little 23 month old from Mexico who had come here for treatment. This of course makes you wonder about safety and what is being done here.  First off, all of the employees are being screened.  They have implemented a policy that ANY patient that comes in with any type of respiratory anything will be placed on droplet  - masks, gloves, plastic gowns.  I have overheard the doctors saying that they might make one pod (section) of the ICU just for the flu if it gets there.  It’s scary stuff, but hopefully it won’t be a problem.

Bella, on the other hand, is having problems.  She just isn’t sating well.  She is currently at 100% on her FIO2 with a PEEP of 11 and her Nitric is up to 20.  They don’t have much wiggle room left.  She is sick.  Her Blood pressure is trending downward, but the increased Nitric could account for that.  Her heart rate today (new trick) is trachy (going faster).  Chest x-ray shows the pleural effusion a little worse.  She is receiving excellent ventilation.  Her problem is oxygenation.  They are trying to optimize her nutrition, keep her negative (more out than in), and do whatever makes her happy.  Obviously, she continues sedated and paralyzed.

2 comments:

Lacey said...

those are definitly extremely high settings. Have they thought about switching her to the ocsilator to see if she gets better oxygenation? It might be a good sugestion. Thanks for the updates, we are all praying for her.

My name is Sarah said...

This is Joyce. I heard about that death this morning and I wondered if it was at your hospital. So sad and so scarry if they brought her in without the proper safeguards in place before hand. I have a call into the archive department at the Cleveland Clinic to see if we can pull up Sarah's charts. Her settings and responses are so much like Bella and I wonder if reviewing them might just give a new idea that has not been thought of. I wish I had kept a journal but didn't think to at the time because we just assumed we would be in and out in seven days like they told us.

My husband reminded me last night that about this time they transferred Sarah back up to the Heart ICU to get her away from all the flu crude and RSV that comes into PICU with the kids. I don't know if it made a difference or not, but it did at least give us different windows to look out for a week or so.

We are praying and asking all we know to pray too. Dear Bella needs a little miracle or two today. Hugs to you Shelly.