I thought it would be nice for people to put a face to the name. I will try to condense her story as much as possible. For those who don't know, Alyssa was diagnosed at Children's Omaha on Sunday January 5th with Idiopathic Pulmonary Hypertension. This basically means she has high blood pressure caused by restrictions of the arteries in the lungs causing pressure to build in the lungs which then causes the heart to work harder to pump the blood through the lungs causing the heart muscle to weaken or fail. The idiopathic part means they don't know why. Alyssa had a procedure done on Wednesday night to see what her lung blood pressure was. Normal pressure on the right side of the heart, for her, should be 25-30 her pressure is 125. This is bad news because it is causing the left side to try to pump blood into the lungs to be oxygenated. With that amount of pressure it is like pumping blood into a brick wall. Blood flows back into the heart and not into the lungs. They also put a clavicle pic line in to administer drugs through and started her on a medicine to try to reduce the pressure. She started at 6ml and was increased every 2 hours until she got to 14ml. This caused her to be very uncomfortable and nausea, vomiting, and fainting. The Dr said if he didn't see improvements in a week she would be transferred to a hospital out of state to await a lung transplant. They started her on a second medicine on Thursday, that they are hoping will also help with the pressure. They have also contacted a Dr in Houston to introduce Alyssa and her case so in the event it is needed Houston would be ready for her. She continues to have nausea, vomiting, and fainting and is very uncomfortable. They have also now started her on a 3rd medicine. The medicine is not doing what we had hoped for however it has stabilized her and increased the blood flow. Now they are hoping for a small improvement and to keep her stable to transfer her next week to Houston to wait for a transplant.
***UPDATE*** For much more details please go back to the beginning of this page and read her entire story. Alyssa was transferred to Houston. The medicines were not working. She was there for 12 days. After a grand total of 21 days of fighting for her life she passed in the loving arms of her mom at 10:11 am on January 26th 2014.
*****Please read the entire story. Know the symptoms, know Alyssa, share her story and this page. Help us continue her legacy of HOPE and AWARENESS******
