PICU

Tatiana is at the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). She has been there for a week now and she is doing much better. Tatiana has fluid around her heart and fluid in her lungs, as well as edema(swelling) in her body.She is down to 7kg from 10kg! Tuesday she had a procedure called paracardiosentisis,(a very high risk surgery) where they stick a needle to her heart and try to get the fluid out by placing a catheter to let it drain. they were able to get out a little over 200mL of fluid so far. She is getting albuterol treatments for her lungs and vibrating treatments as well. She was intubated for a few days and is now extubated, they had done an epinephram treatment afterwards, to keep her bronchial passage open so she could breath on her own. She has a nasal canula now on with 3L of oxygen. Her blood pressure has gone down, because she isn't retaining as much fluid. Tatiana has been on dialysis for a week now as well, her kidneys aren't working very well. She is also getting plasma pheresis exchange, which filters out her own plasma with new plasma and cleans out her blood..which keeps her t-cells from attacking. Tatiana has HUS (hemolytic uremic syndrome); which is vasculitis, where the lining of her blood vessels are damaged and the blood and platelets stick to the lining, which is why she still needs blood products daily. She is starting to eat again and she seems much more comfortable. We are fortunate to have many good doctors and nurses watching over her..her cardiologist, renal(kidney) doc, bmt docs, and PICU docs,as well as the residents and nurse practioners!