On Friday, October 22nd, my mom went to JCMG for a steroid shot for her knee. Something in the shot caused her to go into anaphylactic shock/cardiac arrest. She was rushed to the ICU at SSM where they immediately started working to regulate her blood pressure, vitals, etc.
The cath showed no heart blockage which was great, but the echo did show her heart was working at a pretty weak level from the trauma. The CT scan didn’t show too much but after close to 12 hours at SSM, it was apparent getting her to the neuro ICU at the University of Columbia was in her best interest. She arrived to the university on Saturday, October 23rd.
Immediately the staff went to work and were able to get her stable and going in the right direction. They were able to get her off all blood pressure meds (she was on four), get her temp regulated, take her off sedation and get her on a continuous EEG to make sure there was no seizure activity occurring.
Once they monitored long enough to be sure there were no further seizures they took her for her MRI on Tuesday, October 26th.
From the MRI we learned that mom suffered quite a bit of damage to the brain. The great news is, there is no damage to the brain stem or the Thalamus which is the main “hub” of the brain per the doctor. He explained the damage is “survivable” and only time will tell what that looks like.
Everything from the neck and down the doc is happy with the way it’s working, no concerns. Just focusing on the brain right now.
Mom is still in a coma and we are praying so hard for her to wake up and we know she is fighting so hard!
Next step will be to move her to a long term care facility to work towards recovery. The way it’s sounding, the move should happen by the end of this week we are hoping.
I can’t tell you how thankful we all are for all of the support, love and prayers. As many of you know, we’re working with one tough woman ♥️
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