First post:
Apr 28, 2018 Latest post:
Aug 29, 2018
First, we would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for reaching out during this difficult time for our family. All of the phone calls and messages we have received in the past 3 weeks have truly shown what supportive and compassionate people we are blessed to have in our lives. As time continues, we are learning that this is a much slower process than we had anticipated. Therefore, we have decided to create this online communication page for everyone to understand what happened, see updates and learn about Jeff’s progress.
On Saturday March 31st, 2018, Jeff was eating his normal breakfast of toast and cheerios in the kitchen. As we all have previously seen, Jeff puts too much food in his mouth at one time. How many times have you heard “Little bites Jeff”? Unfortunately, after my mom’s attempts to have Jeff spit his mouth full of toast out, he began to choke and became unresponsive. After the Heimlich maneuver and CPR was performed, emergency response personnel then rushed Jeff to Parkland Medical Center. Although groggy from his choking incident, he was responsive and communicative, of course expressing his desire to go home and further asked “What happened Mommy”?
Jeff was diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia and a few broken ribs. The plan for him to go home quickly turned into an overnight stay for observation, which subsequently turned into an overnight stay in the ICU at Parkland. Jeff became very sick, very quickly. Ultimately, Jeff was intubated and sedated and medical staff at Parkland determined he was too sick to be managed at Parkland and was transferred to the ICU at Elliot in Manchester later that evening.
Jeff remained in the ICU at Elliot for about 2 weeks. There, he continued with intubation and sedation and at times, was paralyzed to allow his lungs to work towards healing. He battled through a series of temperatures and infections, all while we held hope for him to return home. He was diagnosed with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and sepsis from his aspiration pneumonia. We quickly learned that this highly coveted idea of his return was further away than we expected. Throughout Jeff’s stay at Elliot, he received top notch care. Each member of his medical team went above and beyond to provide Jeff the best care possible, even hearing conversations on April 12th that it was my parents’ anniversary, to which they ordered them a cake to celebrate in Jeff’s ICU room. During the time Jeff was at Elliot, he had a series of good days, and bad days. We celebrated days when there weren’t any setbacks and we held his hand and talked with him through the difficult days.
On April 14th, Jeff had been fighting consecutive challenging days, and his medical team consulted with doctors from Boston and it was agreed upon he needed to be transferred. Late that night, Jeff was med flighted to Massachusetts General Hospital where he has remained in the ICU. There are several ICUs at Mass General, and Jeff is in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU). Jeff continues to be intubated and sedated and remains critically ill. Jeff is receiving extraordinary care while in the MICU at Mass General and we are with him daily, hoping and praying for his health to improve. As we are posting this on April 24th, 2018, it has been 24 days Jeff has been in a medically induced coma and we welcome any positive thoughts, vibes or prayers filled with love, hope and encouragement.
As any major changes occur within Jeff’s health, we will post updates here. It has been difficult for my parents to tell this story and to ensure they are returning calls, texts and emails in a timely manner. Please feel free to share with those who know Jeff.
Thank you for continuing to keep Jeff in your thoughts and prayers. We genuinely appreciate it, from the bottom of our hearts!
