Helping Holly Warner and family, please.

Hi, my name is Christine Salamone and I have started this Go Fund Me out of concern for Holly Warner, a caring teacher, friend, mother of two little boys and devoted wife to her husband. I will let him tell you their story. I hope that if you are able you would consider helping them out during this very difficult time. Thank you in advance.

 

On Tuesday, November 23 my beautiful wife Holly was ending her work day, getting ready to leave to get her hair done for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. While washing her hands in the bathroom at her high school she felt her vision go sideways and the next thing she remembers is the paramedics picking her up off the floor of the bathroom and onto a gurney. We found out later that thanks to a couple of her colleagues who found her and enacted the schools safety plan she was able to actually make it to her first stop in Middlesex Hospital. Holly got her first of many scans and they discoverd she had a bleed in her brain. By the time our youngest son(8) and I got there they had already arranged transport to Hartford Hospital where she could get the care she needed. I have never seen someone in so much pain. She truly had a debilitating headache. She could not communicate, and could only toss and turn every couple seconds with head hurting as it was.

 

When she got to Hartford Hospital she immediately got multiple scans, and xrays. They discovered she had an aneurysm that ruptured. She went into emergency surgury to place an external drain in her head to drain out the blood. The following day they discovered that she had a second aneurysm that was leaking. Once again she had to go into emergency surgery where they placed coils into the aneurysm to build up scar tissue in order to seal it shut. After this she began the road to recovery.

 

Holly was in the ICU of Hartford Hospital getting the best care possible. However, even with the best care possible the recovery was incredibly hard on her. There were days where her spirits were up, but as the days went on it started to weigh on her. The doctors kept saying that she was a miracle and they could not believe she was alive. Her main doctor told us that 50% of people die when the aneursym ruptures, and another 20% die on their way to the hospital. Feeling like she did she did not consider herself a miracle, especially because during the first few weeks of recovery there is a strong possibility that you will have a stroke due to spasms in your brain. Sure enough this happened a week into her recovery. Thanks to Holly knowing her body and the nurses doing their exams on her every hour they caught it early. Once again, Holly was rushed into emergency surgury to treat her brain spasms.

 

The treatment worked very well and she was on her road to recovery. On day 14 She got her drain removed from her head and a shunt put in to help with drainage. She was finally ready to come home.

 

She then developed extreme spasms in her brain again and this time suffered a stroke. It was a major setback. She was rushed into brain surgery number 5. The next day she was not herself at all, she had lost sense of emotion and reasoning. It was incredibly scary to see. Miraculously, she started to pull though a little everyday. On day 29 she was finally discharged.

 

Then 2 weeks later she developed an infection and was back in the ICU for another 4 days after her seventh surgery removing her shunt in her head. She got a taste of recovery and then had it taken from her. This was a significant physical and mental setback.

 

While in the Hospital she was only able to see our two boys, 9 & 8 once for a five minute stint in the lobby. She missed our sons 8th birthday. She missed the good mornings, and good nights. She missed the holiday season with her family.

 

This recovery will be a very long process. She has visiting nurses, occupational therapists, and physical therapists coming to the house multiple times every week.

 

 

 

Now Holly has to worry about going to back to work on February 1st. Her doctor has said that she should not return to work until next school year. However, FMLA with her school district uses her sick days as short term disability. She will run out of sick days on February 1 and becuase we can not afford for her to go unpaid she will be forced to return to work. She is not cleared to drive due to a seizure she sustained early on. This has been incredibly stressful for her healing and for our family. She needs to heal in the appropriate way with unstressful rest and relaxation. She needs to move on her own timetable and not be forced to by going to work.