Heather Smith Hospital Update: Christmas Miracles coming true!

She is awake!

I know a lot of people are sitting on their side of the screen wondering, “what the hell happened??”

Well, basically this... Heather’s run of the mill sore throat was actually caused by a bacteria called “haemophilus influenzae.”

Despite the name, it is NOT the flu or related to the flu in any way , nor is it even a virus. It’s a bacteria that wreaked complete havoc on Heather’s body.

Soon, it caused a retropharyngeal abscess (back of the airway) and a cellulitis infection in her neck tissue, and then, that made her go septic.

The infections got into her blood strream and caused a lot of damage quickly.

She wasn’t able to support her own airway anymore due to all the swelling in her neck (I circled it in yellow pic) and how sick/weak she was, hence the need for intubation and being flown out from our little country hospital to the big hospital in downtown Dallas with 24 hour ENT services and just all around way more resources for us via CareFlight.

She is now awake and able to write down her thoughts and communicate. The plan this morning is for Heather to have surgery in her neck to drain the abscess/clean out the infection, and then, continue on with lots of IV antibiotic treatments, steroids, and pain medicine to knock this infection out.

Your continued prayers and support mean SO much to us, so, please keep them coming as she fights this fight. She’s supposed to be baking Christmas cookies with the Goose this week, building block towers with Clara, and snuggling our tiny tiny Lucy, and dancing to Christmas music. It’s absolutely shattering her mama heart that she can’t.

I know a lot of people have asked how they can help and it’s been such a whirlwind with such lack of sleep, I don’t know where to begin.

If you would like to help beyond prayers, please reach out to Loren Harris as he is helping me with food items or items for the baby and girls.

We are almost there. Merry Christmas to all and thank you so much for being a part of our lives!