![]() ![]() Larson said ECMO is used on just 1% to 2% of the sickest COVID-19 patients. Her only chance was a complex, invasive life support procedure known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO. Her organs still weren’t getting enough oxygen. Larson, a cardiothoracic surgeon, was called in because Bunch needed more than that ventilator to survive. She was on the mechanical ventilator," Larson says. Not only did Bunch have COVID-19, she was six months pregnant, and her lungs were failing. ![]() Larson said there was something else to worry about. So this is a fetus at an age where it is not likely to survive outside the uterus." "So they quickly contacted our team at the University of Iowa," says Sharon Beth Larson, a doctor at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, "to say we have a COVID-19 patient who has a periviable fetus. She had a seizure, and doctors decided she would need to be transferred to Iowa City, some 80 miles away. Then Bunch’s condition deteriorated fast. "And I thought I was getting ready to go home." I just remember they were checking my temperature. Instead, she got sicker to the point where she went to the emergency room in Waterloo, a small city in eastern Iowa. ![]() I couldn't really eat that much," she recalls.īut Bunch never got better. ![]() "I was taking several baths and showers a day. When Bunch tested positive for COVID-19, she quarantined alone at home hoping to ride out her fever and cough. Aquarius Bunch was a healthy 27-year-old working at an assisted living facility in the Midwest when she got COVID-19. Though many people who have been seriously ill from COVID-19 are older or have underlying health conditions, it’s still unclear what causes certain people to get really sick. COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF IOWA HEALTH CARE MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |