Gracie's days in the PICU

I am going to skip writing about the morning she died for a little while, because I don't want to go there right now.

Gracie spent almost the entire 3 weeks in the PICU on life-support, only beginning to stir in the last couple of days of her life.  Not too many people are aware of what exactly Gracie went through, mostly because we were avoiding the press and other unwanted things.  Also we expected Gracie would pull through and I would tell her story at that time.

At the height of the virus, we counted 14 pumps of medications hooked up to Gracie at one time.  Medications infused in to her were: (I stopped writing them down after awhile, so this is not the entire list:
Chloral Hydrate - Used to sedate Gracie and to keep her comfortable.  This drug has a calming affect and helps to lessen anxiety.
Rocuronium - It is a paralytic used to completely relax the skeletal muscles, esp in use for intubation.  Our nurses told us that it can only be given once a patient is COMPLETELY asleep/sedated.
Midazolam - An amnesiac that helps with the sedation.  I think that I was told that it would make Grace feel like she hadn't been asleep for 3 weeks.
Dopamine - To assist with stabilizing her blood pressure
Epinephrine - Used as a blood thinner and for her bloodp ressure, helped with the blood clotthing that she had going on.
Morphine - Pain medication
Hydromorphone - Pain medication, similar to morphine
Fentanyl - A very strong pain medication similar to Morphine, but much more potent.  Gracie was given 3 different types of pain medications to becoming "addicted" to one particular.
Lasix - Is a diuretic used to treat water retention.  It was used to help Gracie when she had become "puffy" and really edemic.
Nitroprusside - A vasodilator,(constrictor) used to open the blood vessels.  It was used to help the clotting in Gracie's legs.  An extremely dangerous drug.
Cefotaxime - A strong antibiotic used for many things, including respiratory illnesses.  This was the last antibiotic that Gracie was on, it was trying to destroy the abscess in Gracie's lung.

Gracie had 8 blood transfusions/platelet infusions during her 3 weeks in the PICU.  Blood was drawn from Gracie's fingers and toes often throughout her day, her poor fingers and toes were so scabbed up because of it.  Her platelet counts were often low, dangerously low.  The average is between 150,000-195,000 - I remember once Gracie's test came back as 15... only 15, and I remember two other tests being in the 80s and 90s......

She battled fevers alot of the time.  It seemed that Gracie was either very warm or very hot.  The highest fever that she had was around 40.8 degrees celcius = to nearly 106 degrees fahrenheit; she battled these fevers for days.  A few hours later her temperature would be around 37 degrees and then just spike for no reason.  Gracie's nurse always tried to make her as comfortable as possible whether her temperature was moving up or down, either with tylenol or the bear hugger.
At home when Gracie was ill with a fever, we would switch between tylenol and advil back and forth and it always took care of them.  But due to Gracie's low platelet count, ibuprophen was not recommended at all. Ibuprophen can cause low blood platelet counts and further bleeding problems; Ibuprophen could tragically harm Gracie.
The bear-hugger blanket is a blanket hooked up to a machine that blows air in to it, it is used to regulate the patient's temperature.  Gracie's bear-hugger had two temperatures, low and high, so depending on which direction Gracie's body needed to be regulated, the bear-hugger aided.

I'll probably add more to this, but I need to take a break for now.