Billy's Medical Emergency

Friends and Family,

First - thank you for all your support and prayers. With the constant stream of texts and calls, the love has been felt. I let Billy know how much his friends and family loved him even when I wasn't sure he could hear me.

What's Happening:

Billy is now stable and starting to recover, but it's going to be a long time before he's completely back to his outgoing, loving self. What most of you know is that this started with a routine dental extraction. For a couple of days his recovery was going seemingly well. On Sunday night, I got a call he was going to the ER. By this time, I was in California visiting family. There, he had a CT scan to determine the cause of his severe face and neck swelling, an abscess caused by an infection. Then, another call saying he was going by ambulance to MUSC, a hospital better suited to meet his urgent needs. On Monday morning, I got another call to confirm he'd have emergency surgery to address the abscess. Then nothing. We waited and waited knowing something wasn't right. The next call received was from Sally, Billy's mom, to let me know that he was on life support and in a medically induced coma. During surgery, they discovered many abscesses and his breathing had become compromised. Sally, myself, and my mom, Jennifer, flew in from Connecticut and California to be by his side.

Billy spent days in the ICU with a ventilator breathing for him. The doctors were finally able to determine he was ready to begin breathing on his own and his breathing tube came out successfully- yay. As the days have passed more tubes have come out (feeding, catheter, etc.). His pain is under control now. He'll be in the hospital at least a few more days if he continues to remain stable. As of now, Wednesday afternoon, he remains in the ICU. His team has placed an order to move him to a room in the general hospital area... things happen in slow motion here.

Thank You:

Many of you have asked if you could help and we would truly appreciate it. There will be costs insurance doesn't cover, in addition to other costs like plane tickets to get back early. If nothing else, please continue to think of him. We are so grateful for all of the support we've received. I will continue to provide updates as we move forward.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

We love you all very much,

Alexa