She is on a ventilator. She was on a ventilator when she was first in the hospital before she was sedated and she hated it. We are hoping the vent comes out before she is fully aware again.
One machine is the balloon pump that help maintain pressure on the heart.
She also has the ECMO machine that helps her blood circulate through her entire body. Lynn refers to it as the gizmo instead of ECMO. I told him that's all it is, just a fancy gizmo.
She is also on temporary continuous dialysis. This assists her kidneys in filtering her blood and maintain the proper fluid balance in her body.
She has a special warming blanket to help her keep her body temperature up due to the fact that so much of her blood is being circulated outside of her body through the pumps.
She is on a blood thinner medication so the blood can flow easier through the pumps. The problem with the thinner is that her blood is not coagulating in other parts of her body either. She has been poked and prodded all over and has tubes entering into her body in several places. The doctors and nurses have to monitor all of those sites very closely for increased bleeding. She does have some external bleeding but not enough to make the doctors too worried.
She has an external pace maker to help her maintain a steady heart beat. They are encouraged by the fact that her own heart beat is starting to beat stronger on it's own. They are hoping to maybe remove some of the pumps on Monday. She can't leave ICU until she is off all of all these pumps.
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