Medical Emergencies

One year ago, we had quite a scare in our family. In my Journey to Health Volume II blog, I mentioned that on Day 16 I had a great check-up and was ecstatic but then things took a turn for the worse, but it didn’t have anything to do with me and had everything to do with Kiarra and my brother, Talan.

Kiarra had her wisdom teeth removed on December 28, 2016.  She was swollen as one would expect, and we have some pretty hilarious video coverage of that day, but all went well and she was recovering nicely. Once it was time to go back to school, she did and was feeling ok.  She had her two week check-up with the surgeon and everything was good. He said she was healing perfectly and she could resume normal activities.

Just two days later, Friday (the 13^th) morning, she woke up swollen and in major pain. I called the surgeon and sure enough they wanted me to bring her in.  Kiarra was so worried about missing work that she didn’t initially want to go back to the doctor. Once we got there, the doctor had one quick look at her and told me they had to take her into surgery immediately to open her back up and get the infection out.  They whisked her away and the nurse handed me a bunch of paperwork to sign. Because she had eaten yogurt and drank some things earlier that morning, I was basically signing her life away. I signed papers that I wouldn’t sue them if something happened to her while under anaesthesia since she didn’t have an empty stomach. Then, more papers to approve resuscitation if need be… and of course all the regular papers you have to sign when agreeing to surgery. It all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to think, I just signed away. I asked the nurse for reassurance, but they couldn’t give me any (for obvious reasons). With a heavy heart, I went to the waiting room.

I no longer sat down to take a deep breathe and to call Jeff with an update when I got a call from my Mom.  She was sobbing on the other end of the phone and I could barely understand a word she was saying. All I heard was “pray for your brother, he’s not breathing”. And then silence. She was driving through the hills in Iowa and had no service. I was frantically trying to get a hold of her, and just lost it and started sobbing myself. One of the sweet nurses from the surgeon’s office came out to console me, thinking I was upset about Kiarra (which I was, but this wasn’t just about her). I quickly explained that I was ok, and that I wasn’t upset about Kiarra, but something else in regard to a phone call I had just received. 1. She didn’t believe me.  2. I know both situations is what caused my meltdown. 3. I was still moving a bit slow as I was still recovering from surgery as well (and on day 16 of not taking hormone medication... which was a disaster in itself).

I got a hold of Jeff, still crying,  he thinks I’m upset about Kiarra (which I am) but barely got a few words out when my Mom called me back. I had to hang up on him to talk with her…she briefly updated me and said he was now in an ambulance but wasn’t breathing when they got to the ambulance and also had no blood pressure…

I finally got to update Jeff and soon after, Kiarra was finished and the surgeon was ready to talk to me. He said he has been doing this for over 30 years and has never seen an infection this bad and escalate this quickly (remember, he just saw her two days prior to this and everything seemed to be good). He said he has definitely had some cases where infections happened but mostly dry sockets or something minor. He only remembered two other cases that were quite extreme where he had to go back in and open someone up in this emergency type of situation but neither had the infection this bad. He had this look on his face that I’ll never forget. A deep look of concern, almost as if he was scared. It was a look of compassion yet fear.  He had JUST seen her in his office two days ago and she was healing perfectly.  Mind you, I was also internally freaking out about my brother so my mind was all over the place. He told me all the signs to watch for in the case he didn’t get it all out. He told me she was MAJORLY swollen and that it would only get worse within the next few days. He gave me the emergency number to reach him if anything transpired over the weekend.  The nurse gave me additional aftercare instructions and I was able to take her home. When he told me that she was majorly swollen, I was expecting the same amount of swelling that she had after having her wisdom teeth out. I was shocked when I saw her. She was almost unrecognizable. It looked as if she had a softball in her cheek (and she was highly medicated). It immediately brought tears to my eyes (thankfully I had sunglasses on). This trip home was not as fun as the trip two weeks prior. The first trip was full of a very hilarious Kiarra acting like ET while driving a race car and wanting me to slow down so we didn’t get pulled over by the cops (I was only going 2 mph over the speed limit).  This trip was brutal. At first we couldn’t get her in the car, she would not stand up from the wheel chair and was just in so much pain.  More pain than I’ve ever seen her in! She was crying hysterically, confused, mad and again soooo worried about her job. She gave me the same look she gave me as a young child when she’d get those stupid shots… the look of “save me…why are you doing this to me”.  It was awful. I was driving and trying so hard to be strong for her, holding her hand and telling her it was going to be ok but about half way home, I lost it. That was even more confusing for her. Thankfully we don’t live that far, and I was able to get it together. As all this is happening, my phone is blowing up with texts from my family in Iowa either with information on Talan or wanting information on Kiarra.

We got home, Jeff helped me get her settled, get oils applied and then I was able to take a deep breathe.

I called my Mom and she gave me the update… Talan was alive but only after being resuscitated two times. He and my nephew were out and about doing somethings when he began having an asthma attack. My nephew drove him as fast as he could to meet up with an ambulance and when they got to the ambulance, he could not breathe. The ambulance took him to the local hospital and they couldn’t get a blood pressure and began to lose him. They had to resuscitate. This hospital took him to another, larger, hospital in the city where at some point they had to resuscitate again.  Finally, they managed to stabilize and get a ventilator in him. He was in a coma but stable and resting allowing his lungs to heal. His daughter, just 20 years old, was called in to make decisions. My Mom, Teige & Kathy, and my nephews were there as well. I text our life group, our pastors and our amazing prayer warrior friends and we all began to pray for him.

Kiarra didn’t want anyone around her and didn’t want anyone to see her. My heart broke, it was so hard seeing her in so much pain. All you Moms how I’m feeling here, it is extremely hard to see our children in pain. She was taking the pain medication and we were applying oils that support infection and pain but the swelling was just so much. She finally looked at herself and was shocked. She wept. The doctor said it would take weeks for this swelling to go down. Our sweet young pastor came by with dinner for us and prayed with us. Harvey came as well; he held her hand and comforted her. She slept a lot.

It was a very scary 24 hours for both Kiarra and Talan. I received an update on Talan mid-morning and his lungs were stronger and they said they’d remove the ventilator if he continued to improve, praise the LORD. Mid-afternoon, the ventilator was out and he was breathing well, talking and being his typical goofball self. He was still in ICU and was being so ornery that they kept getting into trouble from the nurses for being too loud. He had everyone cracking up.  It wasn’t long and he went from being on the ventilator to being released. Someone who had just been resuscitated twice within the past 24 hours was now free to go home. Mind blowing to me. But, that’s God. He is so good, always!

Kiarra was not doing so well. The swelling was only getting bigger. The pain was unbearable. She had homework and was still so worried about her job. I text her boss and told her she wouldn’t be there for at least week and they were so understanding. That helped ease her mind a bit.  She returned to school, thankfully she had late arrival and early dismissal so she didn’t have to be there all day every day. After a couple of days, the swelling in Kiarra’s face started to go down and she had a full recovery. It took a full 3 months for it go down completely but it did and she’s doing great!

Although we don’t always get along, Talan is an important person in my life and I can’t imagine him not being here. This was a scary situation and I’m so glad they were able to save him and he was able to recover…now if he’d just take care of his asthma daily instead of when he just has flare ups… that’s another blog for another time. :)