Another problem was discovered early yesterday when Lyra's doctors and nurses were having trouble keeping her blood pressure stable. After an echo that was inconclusive, her primary surgeon decided it was time to perform another catheterization to find out what was going on.
They found that Lyra was having some clotting issues and had, during the course of the cath, clotted off both of her pulmonary arteries, which was making it extremely difficult to keep her blood oxygenated. They managed to get some areas opened, which in itself was fairly risky after only a week out of surgery.
They have also put her on a strong anti-coagulating medication that should break up the clots, but that also exposes her to increased risk of bleeding.
Maren and I are hopeful that these decisions are helping her get through these next few days. They plan on doing another cath early this coming week to determine how well the medication is working.
Currently she's stable and resting, and continuing to get a lot of the excess fluid out of her body.
Posted by Tim at October 31, 2004 09:22 AM