Help Support the Recovery of Charlie Bowman

From the bottom of our hearts, we ask that you please consider helping with the ever-growing medical bills and care for Charlie. Charlie is nothing short of a miracle at this point. For those of you that do not know the full story or what is happening, please let me fill you in.

 

October 15, 2021

On the weekend of October 15th Charlie was feeling under the weather with what everyone thought was the common cold. He took the weekend to rest to hopefully get better.

 

October 18, 2021

On the morning of October 18th at 5am Amy found Charlie in the bathroom vomiting (only bile) and was not coherent. At this point thankfully Amy acted quickly and called 911 immediately. The ambulance arrived and took him to the ER. Once he arrived at Mayo, things did not look good. During his initial examines his organs were shutting down and they knew that they needed to act fast. Even though they were not certain what was wrong, they knew it was serious. At that point a decision was made to air lift him to Rochester to ensure that he had the best care possible. Neither Kirk or Amy were able to ride with him so they immediately went home to grab a few things and drove to Rochester for which would be the beginning of a very long road. Once he arrived the put in a breathing tube and induce a coma so they could begin to figure out what was happening. The first test performed was a COVID-19 test which came back as negative. They then did an ecogram on his heart to find out he had Myocarditis which is an inflammation of the middle layer of the heart wall. After discovering this they also wanted to do a spinal tap and an MRI to determine if it was viral. They were unable to get him stabilized enough on Monday to do either of these tests so they needed to wait.

 

October 19, 2021

They were able to stabilize him enough to perform the spinal tap. It was determined that the infection has traveled to his brain. He now had the infection in his heart and in his brain. They continue to do more tests and at 1:45pm they were able to perform the MRI as they were able to stabilize him. It was determined that he had both a viral and bacterial infection in his brain. He is still on the ventilator and is sedated. Once the MRI is completed, they talk about taking him off the ventilator.

 

October 20, 2021

Things are progressing in the right direction. They were able to stabilize him enough to give him the MRI. It was determined that he had Fuso Bacterium Necrophorun. This is the illness that shut his immune system down initially that let the virus in. The virus attacked his system and traveled to his brain very quickly. At this point they have removed most of the wires for his heart and is breathing well on his own. He can only open one eye at this point as the other one is swollen shut. He is unable to talk at this point as they believe the infection in his brain. His eye continues to swell so they now know that they need to go in and surgically see what is going on as it is now the size of a baseball. Once they got into surgery, they determined that the virus had attacked his sinuses causing all the swelling in his eye. They believed they had removed all the infection and his eye would on the mend.

 

October 21, 2021

Charlie is not progressing. It was determined that the infection in his brain was getting worse. Decisions were made to bring in the brain surgeon and go in after the infection. They made two small holes in Charlie’s skull to go in and remove the infection. At first site, they believed the infection had gone further into the brain than they had anticipated but they were hopeful the work they had done removed a significant amount. They knew they were not able to get it all, but they were hopeful that Charlies body would be able to fight the infection as he was getting stronger. The decision was made to start bringing him off from the sedation medication very slow to see what happens. This was the beginning of a very slow process.

 

October 22, 2021

They were still slowly reducing his sedation medication. The waiting game continues.

 

October 23, 2021

No change at this point. It was determined however that Charlie was not in control of his right side. The surgery that he had was on the left so they were concerned that he could have possibly had a stroke from the surgery. An MRI was performed and there was no sign of a stroke, so this was continued good news.

 

October 24, 2021

They were able to remove the drainage tubes from his brain and finally eliminated all his sedation medication. Mid-morning, we received word that Charlie opened his eye, looked Amy in the face and said “MOM” and reached out for a hug. This was a miracle in the process, and everyone could not be more elated that he spoke those words.

 

LONG Road Ahead

Charlie has a long road ahead, but everyone is very hopeful with physical therapy that he will be able to regain the use of his right side. There are still a lot of unknowns at this point and no site of discharge from the hospital. Charlie will immediately begin working with physical therapy to regain the use of his right side as well as begin to speak again. They know that Charlie has the concept of all the words, they are just not able to come out yet in full.

 

Another hardship that Kirk and Amy are facing is that the week before Charlie fell sick, Amy had started a new job. She has been able to take a leave but it is not a paid leave.  This has been a tough decision but being with Charlie every day it is giving him the strength needed to keep improving.

 

They are forever grateful for those who have already reached out to help with hotel rooms, food and those who have already given financially giving Amy the ability to stay as long as Charlie needs her while he is recovering. Your generosity will not forgotten.

 

If you are able to help, even in a small amount, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

With Love and Thanks,

 

The Family of Charlie Bowman