It would act like her heart and lungs circulating her blood in and out of her body. It sounded completely frightening to Dustin and I but it was her chance to rest and try to heal the damage the virus has caused her heart.
It was a couple hours of surgery to get her set up on the ECMO machine. They had to attach it to both a large vein and artery in her neck.
If you want to read more about the ECMO machine, this website is pretty good for a high level overview:
http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/e/ecmo/
When we did get to go in and see her, it was about 3:00 am. Her color was back, her blood pressure was regulated. She looked fantastic compared to the last time we saw her. The machine was big, but not as scary as we had thought. It was an amazing piece of equipment that had saved Mallory's life. After sitting and holding her hand for a while, we finally decided to get some sleep.
Sleep Rooms have become our second home here at Egleston. Each day we sign up for a lottery to get a sleep room for the night. The first night we were in a room that had 2 fold out chairs. Since then we have gotten lucky with rooms that have 2 twin beds. They also have showers, lockers and washers/dryers that we can use. We can move our stuff in at 5:30 each night but we have to be out by 10:30 each morning so the rooms can be cleaned.
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