In My Shoes: Update

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Update

What started out as being a small bleed has now progressed to a more serious situation. Somewhere, somehow she has lost 2 units worth of blood. We haven't seen it through the coughing but she is now bleeding rectally and through her urine as well. The lung bleed is visible on the CT. It isn't big but it is right above the original one. It is showing that the blood is now moving the wrong direction in that area and they can't embolize it because the blood is moving TO the spinal artery which means if they did the procedure there is a very good chance she would be paralyzed. Right now they are treating her with meds. They gave her platelets as they are dropping and last values were 25,000. The are doing an upper GI, endoscope, and an abdominal CT tomorrow looking for the other sources of bleeding. She is actively on the TX eval list with our hospital and the tests will be ordered so she will go back to UCLA as soon as they can finish the tests. She has a reaction to the platelets and had to receive emergency treatment for that (headache, rash, severe itching and her throat started closing) They are monitoring her closely now.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Biliary Atresia

Biliary atresia is a condition in which the ducts that carry bile from the liver to the gallbladder and small intestine are not normal. These ducts can be injured, blocked, or missing. When the ducts that carry bile out of the liver are closed, bile backs up and damages liver tissue. In time the liver can develop scarring or cirrhosis. The gallbladder may also be abnormal or missing. The cause of Biliary Atresia is unknown. It occurs in one infant in every 15,000 live births. It is a serious disease which requires immediate surgical and medical treatment.

Arteriovenous Malformations AVMS

I have been diagnosed with AVMS in my lungs do to my liver disease. These have caused me to have 2 lung bleeds which were very scary. I still have more AVMS and they are causing me breathing problems. Below is an explanation of what the AVMs are and a picture of what is happening in my lungs.

Arteries and veins are part of the human cardiovascular system. Normally, the arteries in the vascular system carry oxygen-rich blood at a relatively high pressure. Structurally, arteries divide and sub-divide repeatedly, eventually forming a sponge-like capillary bed. Blood moves through the capillaries, giving up oxygen and taking up waste products from the surrounding cells. Capillaries successively join together, one upon the other, to form the veins that carry blood away at a relatively low pressure. The heart acts to pump blood from the low pressure veins to the high pressure arteries.
If the capillary bed is thought of as a sponge, then an AVM is the rough equivalent of jamming a tangle of flexible soda straws from artery to vein through that sponge. On arteriogram films AVM formation often resemble a tangle of spaghetti noodles. This tangle of blood vessels forms a relatively direct connection between high pressure arteries and low pressure veins.
The result is a collection of blood vessels with abnormal connections and no capillaries. This collection, often called a nidus, can be extremely fragile and prone to bleeding.