Hi, I’m Erin. For those who may not have know, my sister Ashley has been in the hospital since before Memorial Day.
Ashley had surgery for a pinched nerve at the start of April. Everything went beautifully, until it didn’t. She started feeling numbness in her leg and foot, but it went away so she didn’t think anything of it. Then some pains in her hands. That turned to a numbness in her finger and toes. The weekend before Memorial Day Ashley started getting awful migraines. The kind that makes functioning impossible. On Friday May 23rd she woke up paralyzed on the right side of her face. She drove herself to Hackensack hospital.
Hackensack saw her in the ER, there was fear she had a stroke, but nothing showed up in CT scans or MRI’s. She was under observation from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon…if you don’t know, May 24th was Ashley’s 40th birthday. Not the place you plan a party. Sunday afternoon she was discharged, there was nothing life threatening that they could see and she was told to follow up with a neuro specialist. She was wheeled to the front lobby and struggled to get into the passenger seat of a car.
Because of Memorial Day we weren’t able to call to schedule an appointment until Tuesday the 26th, we were thankful that we could be squeezed in on the very next day.
By Wednesday morning my sister was still experiencing excruciating headaches, she could no longer walk on her own and couldn’t swallow anything aside from a small sip of water.
The specialist took 1 look at her and said she should have never been discharged. Her ability to function continued to decline. Her nerves and muscles were failing her. She was diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome. We entered Hackensack hospital through the ER again. After just a short while Ashley was struggling to breathe on her own. She was intubated and put into CCU where she stayed for 9 days. She was treated with plasmapheresis.
She’s struggled with fear and anxiety, but with coaching she was able to build the strength mentally and physically to come off of the ventilator.
She’s now been moved to a regular floor at the hospital. Her strength is coming back a little bit every day, but she has a lot of fighting to do. We’re not sure how long she’ll be in the hospital or how much physical therapy will be needed as an out patient. What we do know is that insurance is not going to cover all of her bills. Family has been helped where we can, but if there’s anyone who would want to help her, and us, it would be greatly appreciated. We thank anyone in advance who can help financially or just by sharing our story.
