Jacob's Celebration of Life

Some of you may know, but here's the situation for those who don't. Jacob was admitted to Sacred Heart on July 21st because he contracted covid and was struggling with his breathing. (To be expected with only 25% lung function on a normal day.) Shortly after being admitted, he was moved to the ICU where he agreed to be sedated and intubated to alleviate the exhaustion his body was fighting due to coughing so hard. At the same time, plans were put in place to transfer him to OHSU. The hope being that it would allow for a jump on healing as they move him to OHSU where his current CF team of doctors and nurses could care for him as they are more familiar with his protocols and meds.

He was transported to Portland and the team has been doing their very best to help him recover. When he arrived, it was discovered that he had a MRSA infection in his port as well as another difficult bacterial infection adding to what he was already dealing with. His port was removed and the team brought him out of sedation and were able to remove him from the ventilator at one point, but things have taken a more serious turn and he was sedated again and put back on the ventilator. Currently, though it changes a little every update, he is at around 90% oxygen on the ventilator and the right side of his heart is starting to show diminished function, which will happen the longer his body is stressed. He has several teams of doctors, surgeons, and nurses doing all they can for him, but Miriah has had to communicate with them via phone from Creswell waiting for updates and making very challenging decisions about procedures and other aspects of Jacob's care at a distance for the past 2 and a half weeks.

Unfortunately, no assistance programs will provide housing for her to be near the hospital since Jacob is no longer a child. We would love to raise the money she needs to be able to afford a hotel room in Portland near the hospital so she could be with Jacob every day and get one-on-one info from the medical team face to face.

If you feel you can help in any way, please consider doing so. It would be so very greatly appreciated. Thank you.

*** I forgot to add that one of the issues causing the most concern is that Jacob has a hole in one of his lungs and a fistula (tunnel) that formed in his chest related to it that isn't closing up. This is limiting what measures the medical staff is able to use in order to help him get better.