Getting back on her feet .

Candice's Hospital journal through her eyes.

While working an overnight shift I began to have some pain on my right side. typically get this pain with my kidney infections and stones. Throughout my shift, the pain grew more intense. After my shift, I planned to get my routine checkup and antibiotics. Boy was I wrong.

Once in the emergency room, I learned that not only was it a kidney infection I had Covid as well. This was a shock to me. I was admitted to the hospital to get my typical antibiotic course and a course of antiretrovirals for Covid. I have had Covid two times before and with both those times I had many different symptoms and felt different. This third time was a complete monster. From the covid came pneumonia. With the pneumonia came oxygen 24/7. I am still experiencing symptoms daily from the pneumonia. I have multiple inhalers and use nebulizers 4-5 times a day. Supplementing oxygen when needed. I began to have trouble swallowing and the doctors couldn’t understand why. After weeks of asking for more testing . I was finally given an EGD which is a scope from your esophagus to belly. From that we learned I developed something called candida esophagitis (severe). Which is thrush. I had it throughout my esophagus and lungs to my belly. Candida esophagitis is painful. Some of my symptoms included pain and difficulty swallowing, chest pains and trouble eating. With this pain, I was no longer able to take food in orally and became very malnourished. I was to begin Total Parenteral nutrition (TPN) through my central line and enter my bloodstream. From this came many different setbacks, I struggled to keep my electrolytes up, had different infections, needed blood transfusions, and had different medications to keep my lab levels up. 30 days later the candidas cleared up. I still wasn’t able to eat or drink. I went through many tests trying to find an answer. Finally, one test a stomach emptying study diagnosed me with Grade 4 severe delayed gastric emptying. Which is known as Gastroparesis. From yet another diagnosis came surgery to not cure the diagnosis but a solution. There are no cures for gastroparesis just temporary solutions. My temporary solution was a GJ feeding tube in my stomach to allow nutrition to bypass my stomach and enter directly into my intestines. This tube will be a permanent place in my life. (I was told there is a clinic in Cleveland that focuses on gastroparesis. (My goal is to get to the clinic and see what other options I may have.) after the placement of the GJ tube, I began to experience intense pain with no relief from interventions. It was on Thanksgiving that I was rushed into emergency surgery and learned I had something called Intussusception. Which is a condition in which one segment of the intestine "telescopes" inside of another, causing an intestinal obstruction (blockage). This is a life-threatening illness. Very lucky to have caught it when we did. From this surgery, I begin to learn the ins and outs of life with a feeding tube. Thinking we have hit a point of improvements and steps to going home. That was not the case. From this became fights with different infections, side effects more illnesses and yet another surgery to replace my GJ tube. Throughout all this, I remained positive. It wasn’t until we hit the beginning of December that I began to lose my positivity and started to sink into a depression. Every day was a fight. Every day I spent away from my daughter was another day of missing out of big moments in her life. I honestly struggled towards the end. With the help of family and friends even strangers, kind words are what allowed me to come out of the depression. Get strong and stable enough to be discharged on December 19. I achieved my one goal of being home in time for Christmas. 80 days later I am home. Each day will be a transition and fight to stay healthy and out of the hospital.

Iam Christine Dupra her mother and we are trying to raise some funds to help her back on her feet after having such life-altering illnesses with no income for so long. She is extremely behind on things needed to maintain life plus having a 3-year-old daughter to take care of , The family has done what they could and is now at our last hope ever so humbly asking for extra help.