Transferred to PICU

Last night after they tapped her shunt and gave her some TPA, they moved her to the pediatric intensive care unit.  Here she will receive incredible care with all kinds of doctors and meds and tests quickly accessible and ordered.  This gave me so much peace of mind.  It's what I wanted and what Lauren needed.

They ordered a head and abdomen CT when we got here because she was so pale.  It indicated that she had blood in her ventricles in the fluid space in her brain.  Apparently the TPA thinned her blood too much and her cell counts dramatically began to fall.  

She received 3 blood transfusions last night and multiple other meds to help her clot.  It appeared to do the trick because her blood work just came back as not too thin and safe to operate.

It appears that there is more than likely a kink in the catheter going into heart that's stopping the fluid from draining and it's backing up into her head, but also that side of face.  The bruising is also from the pressure, but became so evident too when her blood thinned out too much.

She will go to surgery shortly.  They are going to leave the shunt part in brain, but replace and reroute the catheter and will put it in a little bit more shallow in the atrium this time.  We are optimistic that this is going to help her heal and fix her.

I am so thankful that I pushed for things to move forward and now.  I can't imagine if she had been injected with more and more TPA and taps till Monday, how her blood and body would have reacted.   It scares me!  

In all honesty I was so worried for her and it became VERY obvious to the doctors that something immediate needed to happen.

I'll post later today or this evening and let you know how surgery went and how Lauren is recovering.

I thank you all deeply for any prayers, this is certainly a very trying time on my family, and tough on our Lauren.  She is so amazing, it fills my heart up to think about her preserverance and strength.

XOXO