Bailey’s Medical, Aftercare and Family Support

I don’t even know where to start with this. I never thought I would ever have to do this, but here we are.

Some of you don’t know, but Bailey has been in the hospital since December 11th. Bailey hadn’t felt completely well for the last couple years. She has been weak and had stomach problems that we all chalked up to an ulcer, or MS symptoms. Well on Saturday the 11th she wasn’t feeling well and was yellow. We convinced her to go to the emergency room. Taylor took her there and Bailey was admitted immediately. They were told that it was her Gallbladder. They did several tests for several days putting a stint in the bile duct on Sunday then on Wednesday Dec 15th they finally took out the gallbladder. We thought that was it and she would be going home in a couple days. 2 days later that all changed and the nightmare started.

On Friday Dec 17 Bailey’s blood pressure dropped so the drs gave her 3 pint of blood to bring her BP up. It went up for a while but went down again and her stomach got rock hard and she was having trouble breathing. It turns out that those 3 pints of blood had leaked into her body cavity via a couple “leakers” from the original surgery. They had to rush her in for emergency surgery to remove all that blood and repair any leaks. They had to cut her open from stem to stern to make sure they got it all cleaned out ( think Grey Anatomy moment with blood and gauze everywhere).

it turns out that her liver was enlarged and not functioning properly so she wasn’t clotting and healing inside like she should. Needless to say they put her in the ICU so they could keep a close eye on her.

Up until now poor Taylor had been staying at the hospital night and day with Bailey and was going to stay Friday night with Bails but the ICU doesn’t normally let visitors stay. Well, Bailey freaked out when she thought Tay was going to have to leave ( she was still half out of it from the emergency surgery) so they let Tay stay that night but told her she was going to have to go home Saturday night. Saturday seemed to be a good day, or at least not a bad day. Taylor talked to the ICU nurses before she left and they convinced her that everything was looking ok and Bailey would be fine overnight, so Tay went home at 8pm. At 11:30 that all changed.

We all got a call from Bailey and the Drs saying that they wanted to put her on a vent because the fluids that they had been giving her had gone to her lungs. They did a chest X-ray and found that her lungs were full and they wanted to tube her to help her breath and to take the stress off her heart. They had her minimally sedated, and her hand strapped down so that she wouldn’t pull the tube out. Well, they didn’t know Baileys strength. Bailey woke up Sunday morning and she said she had a fight or flight moment so she bent her head down to her hand and pulled the tube out herself…. Only Bailey!! They left the tube out for about 8 hours to see how it would go, but ended up putting it back in. Thankfully, on Monday the 20th they were able to take the tube out!!

She has slowly been doing a little better each day since then. The internal bleeding appears to have stopped, the lungs are clearing without the tube and the kidneys are working well enough (throughout all this her kidneys were not putting out as they should and there was talk of having to do dialysis). She was moved out of ICU to a regular room.

Bailey is still very weak and sleeping most of the day but we are hoping she is on the mend. The Drs have said that she has several months of therapy ahead of her and that it will be a couple years until she will be close to back to her old self.

Aside from the emotional toll on the family, this is taking financial a toll on Bailey and Taylor and will continue for many, many months. Taylor had to take a short term LOA at work to stay with Bailey, but that ends shortly. Bailey will not be able to work for several months, possible a year or so. I don’t want to see them loose everything they have worked so hard for. They just bought a house in June and finally got married in October.

We all appreciate any help you can provide to help.

Thank you all for you prayers and positive energy. Bailey truly is loved by many, many people.

Love to you all ! Merry Christmas and hopes for a happy and healthy New Year