The last week of September, Sean had a small wound on his leg. We were keeping a close eye on it for infection. He then got what we, wrongly, assumed was the flu. He had a fever and GI issues. George and I left for school/work with a very limited goodbye routine. As I was working, Sean started to get confused. I ended up taking him to the ER that night. I assumed he had cellulitis and was possibly starting to get sepsis.

The ER doctor was concerned about necrotizing fasciitis! So the decision was made to take Sean to the OR to confirm or deny. It was supposed to be a quick surgery with 1-2 days in ICU to monitor him. Boy, was everyone wrong! The leg looked good, thankfully. So I headed home.

Several hours later, the hospital called. Sean was getting worse. Did I consent for them to open his leg up again/more? Of course, I said yes! Another phone call a little while later, the leg still looked healthy. They weren’t sure why his symptoms were worse.

Over the next 2 days, Sean got worse and worse. He went into kidney failure, then respiratory failure. His body was shutting down! I was making decisions that I never thought I would be making about my husband at this age!

Then the worst phone call, “It might be time to start thinking about bringing your son up to say goodbye!”

Then the next call was, “Or we can transfer him to another hospital and start him on ECMO.”

So on October 1st, Sean got transferred to another hospital and started on ECMO. He improved, then worsened, then improved again. It was and still is a crazy rollercoaster!

On October 10th, Sean had a tracheostomy placed, and his leg was finally closed up. They also decided that he was stable enough that we could stop ECMO!

Since that day, it’s been a slow recovery. Sean is awake and alert. He’s on dialysis with the hopes that his kidneys decide soon to start working again. He still has the trach and is on some minimal breathing support. But that is getting less and less every few days. He is very weak as he has been lying in bed critically ill for 6 weeks now.

And somewhere in there, he developed a blood clot in his leg and 2 bouts of pneumonia.

We are hopeful that he can leave the ICU soon. He will for sure need a rehabilitation center when he discharges before I can bring him home, possibly even more care than a rehab center can offer! It could be weeks or months away before he is home again with George and me! We aren’t sure about his future. And being that he only gets paid when he works, you can start to see our issue!

I have been out of FMLA to be by his side. But that will eventually end, and I will be going back to work full-time.

The medical bills have already started arriving. Even with insurance, we are looking at thousands of dollars to cover those. Plus, we have been and will continue to be without Sean’s income while he recovers.