<div>Hello, My name is Samantha Saldana, my family and I are residing in Austin TX. In Dec of 2023, my daughter came home sick from school at the time she was 9 years old. I took her to an urgent care that night and they checked her for Covid, Flu, Strep and Pneumonia. Doctor sent us home, stated that it was a viral infection, just give Tylenol and Ibuprofen and she would get better. That weekend, my daughter SammieJ was so sick with high fevers, you couldn't even touch her skin. She was so sick she was terrified, she kept saying that she didn't want to die. We kept reassuring her that she was going to be ok and that it was just a cold she was fighting. Sunday night she began to cough, and before we knew it, it was non-stop. Monday night we stayed up all night with her sitting her up so she could catch her breath, but nothing would help not even Vicks. On Tuesday morning, December 19, 2023, she was pale. Her father sent me to Dell Children's Hospital Emergency Room. As soon as we walked in and signed her in she just couldn't walk anymore. They began to check her oxygen and noticed it was low and brought her a wheel chair, they checked her lungs and said she could have pneumonia in the left lung. They took her in right away and began to give her oxygen. She was so dehydrated that as they looked to put an IV her veins were compromised. They were able to get one in and began to give her fluids directly. Doctors and nurses were coming in to check on her and see what would be the next step for her, they contemplated whether she needed a regular room or go to the ICU. She was still alert and knew who and where she was. About 45 mins into care, SammieJ's oxygen dropped to the 50's.
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<div>It all happened so quickly. Before I knew it, she was being rushed to the ICU. She was irritated and was fighting the oxygen, saying that she couldn't catch up to the air. Before I knew it, she was being incubated. That night into the morning, I would stand by her and I would touch her, and her limbs were so cold. I would ask why she was so cold but her upper torso was warm, they would say that it was just how sick she was. Then, I saw them wrapping her in these cold pads on her legs and arms, they said she had a high fever of 107. Still I had hope that when the morning came, they'd tell me that she had a tough night but she was going to be ok. I never imagined what my family was just about to face.
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<div>On Dec 20, 2023, that morning, the doctor came in and told me that they were trying to find out how and why she got sick why it happened so fast. Then, they told me that her kidney's had shut down and they'd have to put her on dialysis. Dialysis? How? They said they had to work on her fast. I kissed her feet and asked her to please stay with me, to please not leave me. I called my family and everyone was arrived. By 11 am, the doctors came in to tell me, that she was not going to make it. She was so sick that she only had a 3% chance of surviving and that her limbs were turning purple and her heart was slowing down. They tried to set her up with dialysis but she had a blood clot on her leg and the to do it on her neck it was too small to sustain. The only chance of survival was going to be to put her on ECMO, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, giving her a 50/50 chance to survive. The plan was to open her chest and connect her directly through the heart and it had to happen right away. My family and I stood outside of the ICU waiting for them to wheel her out of the ICU and into surgery. As she came out we all cried and said our good byes.
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<div>The hours rolled by so slowly, and an update came that the surgery was a success. We waited all evening to see her, and they finally called us in after 8 pm. She was in room 213 in the CCU. Her chest cavity was opened with a membrane over it and she had tubes coming out connected to the ECMO machine and 3 chest tubes. The tubes were clear to make sure that the blood flow was not clotting. Her plasma was being changed out every hour. She was receiving dialysis through her neck and she had stickers on her head to check on her brain activity and a tube coming out of the left lung draining the fluids. We then were told that she was sick due to Flu-B, Streptococcus, pneumonia and sepsis shock. She was considered to be the sickest child in all of the hospital. I sat there and watched her at her most vulnerable time of her life, it was hard to hold on to hope, how in the world was she going to survive this. The following morning, we met in front of her room, there were 19 doctors and specialists and one on the phone, all discussing her care and trying to figure out how it was that she got so sick so fast. They thought maybe she had Leukemia, or even Lupus, but that was not the case. Her white cell count was so high, the machine stopped counting after 40,000. That night, she opened her eyes and she shed a tear, the hardest thing in the world is seeing your child suffer and you can't do anything to help.
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<div>The days went by so slowly, and then her skin began to change. Her left side more than the right, the purple started to erupt to the top of her skin and turned into big bubbles of water, she looked like a burnt victim, every day that passed it got worse. On Dec. 28, 2023 they took her into surgery to wing her off of ECMO to see if she could be on her own and it was a success. She was awake but still had the breathing tube in place and was on a lot of medicine. She still had to face seeing her body as it changed. On January 2nd 2024, they removed the breathing tube and the sweet sound of her voice asking for water was nothing more than a miracle. She was so heart broken when she realized how much time had passed by, to her she thought it was the next day, she had missed her Christmas school play. The days thereafter, it would take 5-7 nurses just to get her out of bed as she was connected to so many things and she could barely hold her head up and wasn't able to walk. The doctors would tell us that it was possible that she'd lose her fingers and toes but it was unknown. We didn't believe that would happen to her.
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<div>As time went by, she was still receiving dialysis and little by little they would wing her off from time to time and then for a few hours, and by the time we knew it she was going to be changed to receiving HEMO dialysis for just a few hours a day. However, once that was the next step, she never had to receive it as her kidneys began to heal. Nurses would come in and say you dont need dialysis today, we will see tomorrow, and tomorrow would come and still no dialysis.
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<div>SammieJ slowly healed and got better. She started physical therapy to help her walk all over again. However the left lung still wouldn't budge and she was forced to have a 2nd chest tube to help drain fluids. Once she was done with CCU, they transferred her over to ICU to care for her until the tubes were ready to come out. Finally after a few weeks they were able to remove the chest tubes completely.
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<div>She was then moved to a physical therapy floor and even then with all of her recovery she was now ready to be sent home! Sammie J was sent home March 14th and they held a beautiful parade for her in ICU, CCU and Physical therapy.
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<div>A few weeks after being sent home, we met with the plastics dept and they set up a surgery to put her on a wound vac to help her left leg. She had a case of gangrene that was 8 centimeters wide 8.5 centimeter long and 1.2 centimeters deep and then realized that the bacteria had damaged her nerves and deep tissue, leaving the tibia bone exposed. She was receiving wound vac changes every week.
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<div>June of 2024 she started to feel sick and had fever. We took her in and they admitted her right away. She was then diagnosed with Osteomyelitis, a bone infection, most often caused by bacteria and was in the hospital for a month before being sent home.
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<div>She was then admitted in August where they were going to attempt to complete a muscle flap. However, during the surgery the doctor looked through her leg and realized she didn't have enough blood flow in the vessels to complete the procedure and didn't wan to take the chance that the muscle would die. After surgery, the doctor informed us that there was nothing left he could do to save her leg and that amputation was the only option and gave us 2 weeks before surgery.
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<div>To us, it didnt make any sense since she was able to move her toes. She wasn't able to move her foot up or down because the muscle was damaged but she could move her foot. SammieJ's father began to look for other hospitals to seek a 2nd opinion. a new Texas Children's Hospital had just opened here in Austin TX in Feb 2024. They accepted to take our case and review for a 2nd opinion. After several checkups and discussions with other doctors they gave the option to either amputate or go further with a procedure that could help save her left leg. As a family we came together and made the decision to move forward with saving her left.
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<div>In September of 2024, they took a muscle from her right side back and covered her leg with it. Every day that the muscle survived was a good day. With the grace of God, she had plenty of blood flow and the muscle survived. Thereafter, one week later they did skin graphs and covered the rest of her leg and that worked out well. In November, we were informed that she had broken her left leg - the tibia bone had broken in half and she didn't feel it because it was a dead bone. A dead bone cannot heal, therefore, they went forward to remove 14 centimeters of her tibia bone and replaced it with a spacer. This was temporary until she was treated with antibiotics to help clear her of all bacteria's. In January of 2025, they removed her fibula bone which is the skinny bone from the right leg and replaced the tibia bone on the left leg.
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<div>In February 2025 they did one more surgery to help her dropped foot by releasing the tendons in the back her ankle to lift her foot up as straight up as she could.
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<div>It has been 7 months now since the surgery and she is now walking on both legs. However, she will have to use a boot for support. Since she first got sick, she has missed over a year and a half of school and she is now able to go back to being semi normal. She is still using a wheel chair and a walker but can walk without either as long as she has her special made boot. She has thick big wound scars on her left arm and on her legs. She was considered one of the very few to survive with all of her fingers and toes and now they saved her left leg. She is nothing short of a miracle.
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<div>Times have been extremely hard and we have fallen behind on bills. Being in and out of the hospital so much, and so many procedures it's been hard to keep up. We also do not have a car and transportation has been so complicated and expensive. With your help, we will be able to pay medical bills that are pending after insurance and home bills that we have been behind on. We would really appreciate all the help we can receive
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