Austin started with Holt in 2015 and is currently a Shop Service Technician in Irving.  

On Thursday, November 1st, at about 3:00 am, Austin woke up with a full blown horrific migraine and vomiting. His wife, Jessica, began doing all the tricks she knew to get it under control. Austin said that he had never felt pain like that before. Jessica gave him some medicine and he went to sleep. At 10:00 am, he texted Jessica, but his text message didn’t make any sense. He called her and wasn’t making complete sentences. Austin is a brain cancer survivor (15 years), so Jessica called his Neuro-Oncologist in Dallas that he still sees yearly and told her staff what was happening. They advised Jessica to get him to the hospital. Jessica took him to a hospital in Arlington on Thursday at 11:00 am. The doctors there did a CT scan, an MRI, a spinal tap, an EEG and blood work. All came back normal. No signs of a stroke or seizures, no viral infections, no meningitis, nothing. They were leaning toward it being a “Complex Migraine” and put him on migraine meds that included anti seizure meds within along with pain medicine and blood pressure medicine. They continued monitoring him over the next couple days - no change was taking place. He was still not making much sense verbally when speaking, but he could follow commands and answer yes/no questions. They did a second MRI and EEG on Saturday to compare those to the first ones. There were no changes and both again were normal. He remained in the hospital being monitored. On Tuesday morning, at about 8:00 am, Jessica got to his room where he was sitting on the side of the bed drinking coffee. She began asking him questions, but he was unable to speak. Shortly thereafter, Austin began to cry. Jessica went over to him and sat on the bed next him and after a few minutes, she felt his arm jerk. She looked up at him and his face was blue/red and he began seizing. He went into a convulsive seizure that lasted about 2 minutes. When he came to, he immediately looked for Jessica. It was a couple hours before he could speak again. He told Jessica “Something happened. Scary.” He slept most of the day and then at about 6:30 pm, he had another convulsive seizure. On Wednesday, Jessica spoke to the neurologist that had been treating Austin and demanded he be moved to Baylor Dallas since he was on day 7 of being in that hospital and seemed to be deteriorating. The transfer to Baylor got approved and Austin arrived there at about 4:30 Wednesday afternoon. The neurologist checked in on him and was still waiting for his records from Arlington so that he could review them. They got Austin hooked up to a portable EEG monitor and monitored him for 24 hours. Austin’s thinking and speech has been a little better since being transferred to the new hospital. He even told his wife that he felt better there. Austin’s neuro-oncologist stopped in to see Austin Thursday afternoon. She reviewed his MRI’s that were done in Arlington along with the one he had done with her this past May. No changes. She talked about the meds that he’s on and stated she felt like he needed to be on seizure medicine probably from here on out. She was going to talk with the treating neurologist and figure out meds. The neurologist came in again (3rd time in one day!) shortly after Austin’s NO left and asked how he was doing . . . And then told Jessica: “He’s had 9 seizures today.” They each lasted about 2 minutes and were the quiet type. There were no visual signs to Jessica that he was having them. The only thing she did notice that day was that a few times he would really struggle with finding words and making sentences. And a couple times, he’d say his head was hurting. But none lasted a long time and he’d doze off. So, she thinks those were the times he was having the seizures. They transferred him to a different room where he can be monitored more closely - ACU. It’s a step down from ICU, but up from where he was. The neurologist is upping his current seizure med and adding a second one as well to see if that will help control them better. Jessica is very confident with what this neurologist is doing. He’s said from the beginning that he thinks Austin was having seizures.  And he stated “Get the seizures under control, that will get headache under control and speech will return.” While we don’t have conclusions, we do have a starting point now!  

Jessica has been by his side everyday. Friends have made sure that their son, Shane, is taken care of while Jessica has been at the hospital. Keep those prayers going that they can get this under control and get Austin home soon! 

Jessica has been posting public updates on her Facebook each day if you would like to follow Austin's progress.