Eric remained medically sedated and paralyzed due to the fragile nature of ECMO. He had been on ECMO for about two weeks- its a machine that filters your blood by directing a tube directly to your heart and to machine that adds oxygen and removes CO2 before sending it back into your body because your lungs cannot help circulate it. For Eric they used a line that went in his neck and out his groin but they had to insert larger tubes so they could increase the blood flow since he's so tall! So he ended up with two in his neck. Because he 'wore out the life' of the machine and to reduce the risk of blood clot in the machine they even switched it out to a new one! He was on full ventilator support which basically opened and close his lungs because there was so much fluid around them and they were so weak. We had no diagnosis at this time.
-Amanda
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