This afternoon Evelyn had a very scary episode where her oxygen saturation levels suddenly dropped very low without warning, o2 into the 40’s. The team responded immediately, called for help, and manually ventilated her with the anesthesia bag and nitric oxide support. Thankfully, she responded right away and her oxygen levels quickly recovered back to 100%. She was then safely placed back on the ventilator.
Since then, the team has been thoroughly checking everything to try to find a cause. They checked her tubes and lines, ran labs, completed an echocardiogram, and did a chest x-ray. So far, everything has come back reassuring and looking good.
They suspect the episode may have been related to changes made to her ventilator settings in preparation for possible extubation tomorrow.
Throughout the day Evelyn was showing small signs of awareness, somewhat through her sedation but her body just wasn’t quite ready to fully take over more yet. She must be sensitive to the change because she shouldn’t have been that aware. As much as she wants to, she is still on many medications that suppress her ability to breathe completely on her own right now while her body continues to recover.
At this time they do not know the exact cause, but they will continue monitoring her very closely for any additional episodes. Moments like this are incredibly frightening, but we are thankful for how quickly everyone responded and for how well Evelyn recovered afterward.
How You Can Help
We’re getting ready for the big fundraiser garage sale for COTA for Evelyn’s Heart! Thank you to everyone who has donated items to the garage sale! If you would like to help with the sale any of the days, please reach out to Rose Thompson on Facebook.
Garage Sale Details:
June 4-6
Location: 7040 Eagle Trail, Centerville, MN
Time: Thurs. and Fri. 8am to 5pm
Sat. 8am to 12pm
Get your “Hearts for Evelyn” T-Shirt
Join our “Hearts for Evelyn” Facebook Group
What makes our partnership with COTA so great is that they will be with Evelyn throughout her lifetime. Every dollar donated to COTA in honor of Evelyn goes to transplant-related expenses. Thank you for being here with us for Evelyn.