ECMO

I had been airlifted to another hospital. A skilled team of critical care doctors took great care of me when I arrived. A special medical team of pulminologists, perfusionists, and all sorts of other extremely medically sounding professionals, did a procedure on me.

I was put on the ECMO machine. ECMO stands for extra corporeal membrane oxygenation.

When I woke up I knew what the letters in ECMO stood for, but I know I have never heard this term before in my life. Which means that my brain was clearly processing information even though I was in a coma. You don't lose your ability to hear when you are unconscious, it just gets processed in a different way.

My medical team was amazing. They had just had an extremely busy day behind them, including three lung transplants. A surgeon cut two holes in the right side of my neck. Then they placed two tubes in them (think garden hose for size). One tube pumped blood out of my body, the ECMO machine took the carbon dioxide out of my blood and put oxygen into it again, then the other tube put the blood back into my body.

This gave my lungs time to heal because they didn't have to do the breathing for my body. A breathing machine was still pumping air in my lungs, but that was just kept at minimum, I don't know the exact numbers, maybe 6 or 8 breaths per minute, something like that.

Someone had to monitor the ECMO machine 24/7. I was on ECMO for 12 days I think.

At one point I was not doing well at all. They have to have you on blood thinners when you're on this machine and I had just had major abdominal surgery, the emergency c-section. They did an ultrasound and found that I was bleeding internally. I was also bleeding along all my leads, the IVs and everything. Blood just pooling on the floor under my bed. A doctor came and inserted a really big needle into my abdomen, draining off over 4 liters of blood which were keeping me from breathing. I had a lot of blood transfusions. I am grateful for everyone who gives their blood, they truly save lives, they saved mine.


I got a urinary tract infection from the catheter so they put me on antibiotics. I got an allergic reaction. They put me on something else, but couldn't really figure out what exactly I was allergic to.


I was in a lot of discomfort apparently, I would sort of grimace and scrunch up my face, they upped my pain medication and that helped. They needed me to cough, so I would cough up the fluid in my lungs. I was on medication that paralyzed me so I couldn't move, so the coughing was bad to witness I believe. It would just sort of take over my body and I would cough and cough and cough.


I was in restraints because the medicine that induces a coma would wear off very quickly for me. If a nurse didn't administer a new dose every hour on the hour, I would start to wake up...


...and that made for some confusing moments during my coma, for sure, but I'll leave that for the next post.


To be continued...