Hi all! Apologies for the mass email but responding to individual requests for information is getting overwhelming so I'm going to start updating everyone at once. I've established a blog (http://brisonfamilynews.blogspot.com/ ) that my family and I will update as regularly as we can; alternatively, you can call my mom's cell phone (615-417-1282) for updates.
Here's the brief rundown so far. Caitlin was exposed to bacterial meningitis sometime during the week of spring break. She fell ill on Saturday, March 8 and by Sunday March 9 she was running a fever and had developed several rashes on her legs. Fortunately my mom recognized that it was not the flu, it was a medical emergency, so she took her into the emergency room at St. Thomas hospital in Nashville at around 11 pm, where the doctors quickly diagnosed her with bacterial meningitis and started administering massive amounts of antibiotics, almost certainly saving her life by preventing the infection from reaching her central nervous system and brain. On Monday her kidneys shut down and she was doing extremely bad, so bad that the doctors told her and mom to prepare for the worst. She was dealing with kidney failure from low blood pressure caused by a blood infection that was making her to bleed internally. She gained 27 pounds in a day as the doctors attempted to salvage her kidneys by pumping over 12 liters of fluids into her. So Monday was the worst. By Tuesday, the blood infection had been taken care of, more or less, and her blood pressure had stabilized, but she was having trouble breathing and keeping oxygen in her blood due to low platelet levels, so she received a transfusion and they put her on oxygen, with talk of possibly putting her on a ventilator. Wednesday showed no improvement, but at least nothing getting worse, which is good-ish news. Which brings us to where she is now. She's not out of the woods yet--swollen, in an intense amount of pain, but breathing on her own. She's lucid and able to communicate, even laughing at the dumb jokes I make, but she's exhausted and can't handle many visitors so please, if you stop by the hospital, don't expect to visit her but please sign her guestbook! Her fighting attitude is fuelled not just by her own strength--the amazing love and support of her community of friends and relatives play a huge role in keeping her spirits up.
One last thought: it's a wonderful thing to feel overwhelmed by love, and my sister teared up in happiness when I told her yesterday that people literally all over the world were praying for her recovery. That's some good medicine. I mean, the antibiotics and coagulants and blood pressure regulators and whatnot are pretty good medicine too, but you know what I mean. Thank you so much for your concern, and I will pass all of your well-wishes on to Caitlin. It means a lot to her.
Brandon
PS If you've noticed that I've left someone out, or you would like to forward this on to someone else, please feel free to spread the word! I would like to have tons of comments on the blog for Caitlin to read once she gets out of the hospital.
PPS For your reading pleasure:
2 comments:
Caitlin and the rest of the fam!
We are praying and thinking of all of you at this time... Keep on laughin and smiling Caitlin... We love you so much!!!
God Bless You,
Tricia and Tim
I really want you to be o.k. we are going to visit you on Monday :)
-your favorite red headed cousins
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