Jessie Muir

Jessie went to the Kittson Memorial emergency room in Hallock MN in the early morning hours of Saturday April 3rd after being sick for a few days and starting to struggle with her breathing.   They transported her by ambulance to Altru Hospital in Grand Forks ND where was was diagnosed with Covid19.  She was started on Bipap to help with her breathing, given plasma with antibodies,  and Redisvimir,  an antiviral agent.  She was doing ok for a few days, she was even down to oxygen via nasal cannula for a short time.   Her lungs and breathing then started to get worse and she needed to be moved to the ICU on Wednesday April 7th, and was intubated overnight that night.  They put her prone (on her belly) as that has been proven to help with breathing in patients with Covid.  She was sedated in order to allow her to tolerate the tube in her throat and allow the ventilator to do the work of breathing for her.  She was placed on 100% oxygen.  They kept her this way until Friday April 9th, when they were able to turn her oxygen down to 60% and she tolerated lying on her back for 4 hours.  Saturday she was able to tolerate a moderate side-lying position for a few hours and things were sounding ok.  She had a rough night overnight Saturday and had to be turned back to 100% oxygen but was still not able to maintain adequate oxygenation, so the decision was made to transfer her to Mayo in Rochester on Sunday April11th.  Rochester recommended placing her on ECMO, which stands for Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation.  This means they put a large tube in a groin area that continously pulls her blood out of her body.  It pumps it through a special machine that oxygenates her blood outside of her body.  It then pumps the oxygen-rich blood back into her body via a large tube inserted into the side of her neck.   This blood is then immediately pumped by her heart to her organs,  extremities,  etc.  Instead of then going to her lungs to be re-oxygenated, it exits her body again to the ECMO machine, in a continuous loop.  She was so sick that they decided to start the ECMO in Grand Forks, and then transferred her via small jet to Mayo.  She arrived at Mayo the evening of Sunday April 11th.