Tuesday, March 29, 2011

H1N1 Case in Austin

Below the case of H1N1 in Austin.

Concerns over H1N1 haven't been talked about in the news lately.

But at Seton they are still seeing cases come in and in some instances it's so severe it's life threatening.

"I was sick - I was so sick," said Cynthia Short.

When Cynthia Short was 35 weeks pregnant she became very sick.

"I was tried and drained and I couldn't get out of bed it was awful," said Short.

She knew this sickness wasn't baby related.

Her doctor said it was allergies but when she went into the emergency room she was admitted immediately.

"We were terrified," said Bill Short, Cynthia's husband.

Cynthia's heart rate was elevated and doctors couldn't figure out why she couldn't breathe.

After an emergency c-section her condition didn't improve so she was transferred to Seton.

Doctors gave a grim outlook.

"She is really in critical condition and there is only one other alternative to what we tried thus far," said Bill Short.

That was a new machine called ECMO.

"We enabled her lungs to rest and get through the disease process," said Dennis Biggan, Perusionist at Seton.

For 17 days Cynthia was mostly unconscious as the machine took her blood out of her body before it reached her heart, pumped it with oxygen, and put it back in so she was able to survive.

"Her lungs were so sick they couldn't transfer that oxygen into the blood or take that carbon dioxide out of the blood," said Biggan.

That sickness turned out to be H1N1.

"H1N1 is still a problem so we know we've heard of a rise of it in the past and it's still present today," said Erin August, Adult ECMO Coordinator.

This year alone three adults between the ages of 29 and 49 have spent weeks on ECMO in order to live.

"It's not the population we would think would be most at risk," said August.

Turns out Cynthia never got her flu shot.
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