Carrie's Road to Recovery

I am writing this with a very heavy heart, sitting at the hospital bedside with my wife, Carrie, who has been fighting for her life since January 12, 2017. On  that day, what was meant to be a joyful event took an unexpected turn. We had admitted ourselves to the hospital, looking forward to Carrie delivering our second child -- our little princess, Tessa -- to join our growing family. While Carrie was in labor, Tessa’s heart rate dropped unexpectedly, and subsequently Carrie went into cardiac arrest. The ER doctors immediately performed a C-section while simultaneously performing CPR on Carrie to keep her alive. Carrie's condition be
came extremely critical.  Carrie suffered a very rare childbirth emergency (1/40,000 births) known as Amniotic Fluid Embolism (AFE), in which the amniotic fluid enters the mother's blood stream and triggers an allergy-like reaction, which resulted in cardio-respiratory collapse. Immediately after the AFE, Carrie suffered the second phase of this condition known as Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC) which caused abnormal blood clots to occur throughout her body while leading to massive blood loss elsewhere.  During this process, Carrie went through a blood transfusion that resulted in 73 bags (300cc per bag) of blood to keep her alive.



After spending 25 days in critical condition in the ICU, Carrie’s condition has finally stabilized over this past week. While we feel extremely blessed that both Carrie and Tessa survived and are both still here with us today, we are still waiting further diagnosis on Carrie’s condition. What we currently know is that Carrie will remain hospitalized for the immediate future as doctors still need to monitor her closely. We also know that she suffered a series of strokes that will affect her speech, vision, and hand-eye coordination which the doctors believe can be re-learned over long-term physical therapy and intensive treatment.


Carrie is a gifted pianist and a full-time piano instructor who is truly passionate about her work with kids. While we are optimistic that she will eventually make a recovery, we are expecting a long road to rehabilitation which will prevent her from getting back to her normal life and providing for her family in the coming years.

Carrie is one of those individuals that you would describe to be the kindest and sweetest person that you’ve ever met, and I’m fortunate to call her my wife. She’s a dedicated mother, daughter, sister, teacher and friend. She loves more than anything to spend time with our two-and-a-half year son, Tristan, and I know she can’t wait to hold him again and also to finally meet our new baby girl, Tessa. 



We are creating this fundraiser to help pay for the hospitals bills, physical rehabilitation, speech therapy, and help to take care of baby Tessa and Tristan.  Carrie will also require additional care such as neurologic rehabilitation to help with her long-term recovery after the stroke she suffered.  We would appreciate any help to get our family through this very difficult period.  

Thank you!