Ashton, Lori, & Billy Spears Tragedy

On Tuesday May 6th at 4am, Ashton who is only 10 years old woke up screaming and said his head hurt really bad. He was limp, his Dad, Billy had to carry him to the bathroom. He couldn't sit up and he couldn't make it back from the bathroom so Billy and his Mom, Lori carried him to bed. He was unresponsive so Lori called 911. He had a hemmoragic stroke and seizure activity in the ambulance. Ashton was taken to Women's and Children's Hospital in Columbia, MO. They intubated him, sent him to get a ct scan and a chest X-ray. Lori and Billy had to wait in picu for results. When the Dr came in, he said that Ashton had bleeding on his brain and they weren't sure why. But, they had to remove the fluid that was causing pressure on his brain. So, they placed a drain tube in to remove the extra fluid, then they checked again and saw an avm. They needed to do an angiogram and Ashton would require surgery so he was immediately transferred to Missouri University. They blocked off all the blood vessels with glue and he went straight into surgery. He was in surgery about 4hrs where they had to open his brain and take out the avm. Billy, Lori, and Ashton spent the night in the MU ICU. They did another ct scan (no blood noted and brain had returned to the middle of the skull), another angiogram showed that there weren't any more avm's found. They spent the night and were transferd back to Women's and Children's. They are continuously having trouble controlling his intracranial pressure. Even with sedation, he was still responding to stimuli so they had to darken the room, stay quiet and cut visits short. They placed a feeding tube in Wednesday and Friday they placed him in a drug induced coma to help control his intracranial pressure. The pressure was low last night then it jumped up again this morning. They increased sedation to help with his brain stimuli, again turned lights down, decreased visits and had to be very quiet. Ashton is resting now and it's just a waiting game. He cannot come off sedation until his icp numbers are low for a day or so. They won't know what kind of damage was done from the initial bleed until he wakes up. They told them that children are very resilient and that all of this is usual with this type of injury. He will have good days and bad days. The usual recovery time from the sugery is 6wks to 3 months. Lori says that she can still hold his hand but he just can't have a lot of commotion in his room. She has not left his side, sleeping at the foot of his bed and resting when possible. Lori was working in a Nursing Home but she will more than likely no longer have a job. Since she has not been employed there for a year as of yet, they will not hold her position. Billy is back to work as he cannot afford to miss work and they have a daughter at home that requires their time also. This young family truly needs us to support them by offering our prayers and donating funds if possible. It is hard for them to ask for any kind of help but the bills still have to be paid and due to this tragedy they are down to one income for an unknown amount of time. Please pray for Lori especially as she spends Mother's Day at the hospital, holding Ashton's hand and pray for Billy to have the strength to hold his family together. Most of all please pray for total healing for Ashton.