Please Pray for Brianna Over the Next 24 Hours

Before today, I've tried to sit and finish the blog a couple of times. The great news was that tomorrow Brianna was going to be extubated. A lot of other things happened, but they are of no consequence now. Everything changed today at 4 pm.

I was in Brianna's room for most of the day. She was answering questions and was very alert even though she was uncomfortable with the tube in her throat. She started to cough and the nurse suctioned the tube. But as she began to pull out the stuff Brianna was coughing up, it became bright blood. More of it began to come out and the nurse quickly called a respiratory therapist and the doctors. I watched as Brianna continued to cough and they suctioned blood from her endotracial tube. Then blood began started to come out of her chest tube. I left because it was obvious that this was serious.

I called John and came back to wait outside her room where Lizzi (our BMT nurse practitioner who's been with us from the beginning) called up on the computer the chest x-ray that was just taken. The left "good" lung looked okay, but the right lung was showing a little hazy area. Then a nurse rolled the crash cart (for restarting a stopped heart) to Brianna's door. "Just in case," he said

Soon after, doctors were rushing in packed red blood cells, platelets, and clotting agents. Brianna was bleeding into her lungs. I stood with Lizzi while more people began running in. The light went on outside her room and they opened the door and grabbed the crash cart. John was still on the road.

For a while our wonderful, beautiful daughter left this earth. The doctors applied compression and she didn't respond. It wasn't until they put a board underneath her back that she responded and her heart began to beat again. That coupled with powerful drugs like epinephrine brought her back to us. Her blood pressure dropped and they are having a hard time stabilizing it.

Our physicians from both PICU and BMT are more critically concerned tonight than for any other event Brianna's dealt with. Both David Cornfield, head of PICU, and Christina Alvira, the PICU attending, worked to bring her back when her heart stopped. When you see tears in the doctor's eyes, you know they care about you and your child and that they are very concerned. We have been told that this is an hour-by-hour situation and that the odds are not in our daughter's favor. If Brianna can be kept stable tonight, and beyond, we won't know if there is any brain damage from possible lack of oxygen while "crashing" until she wakes up.

She is back on the oscillator to help provide compression to stop the bleeding inside of her lungs. They think an artery in her right lung broke or was invaded by the aspergillus, although they aren't certain. Aspergilllus's MO is to infiltrate the lung tissue and surrounding blood vessels. The doctors also had to put in two more chest tubes. She already had one on the right side, but now she has a second one on that side near the back of her lung. They had to put a new one in her left side. While they were giving her oxygen and hand expanding her lungs, they tore a small hole in her left lung. The tube is to help drain any air that may be leaking into her plueral space between the lung and the ribs.

As I write this, John and I are on a vigil in, and just outside, her room hoping and praying to beat the odds again.