Help Linkin Heal From Anoxic Brain Injury

On June 15, 2019, our world was forever changed when our three year old son, Linkin, fell into a swimming pool and suffered a near-fatal drowning which resulted in a severe anoxic brain injury. He was rushed by ambulance to Christus Good Shepherd hospital in Longview where he was immediately loaded onto a helicopter and care flighted to LSU Children’s Hospital in Shreveport, LA. He was admitted to the PICU on a ventilator, unable to breathe on his own. At this point they were not sure if he would make it, and if he did, how much damage was done. Four days after the accident, they did an MRI and the results were not anything a parent wants to hear about their child. His prognosis was severe anoxic brain injury and they told us that he most likely would not recover from his injuries and would have severe deficits for the rest of his life. The following day, they pulled his breathing tube out and he was miraculously able to breathe on his own. He was on vapotherm oxygen for about one week, then regular room air. He was in the PICU for a little over two weeks before he was able to move to the Pedi floor where he waited for a rehab to take him as a patient. While we were waiting rehab placement, on July 6, he had surgery to place a peg tube in his stomach for feeding and medication since he was unable to take anything by mouth. Then after 23 day of staring at my son laying silently in his hospital bed, I heard my baby’s voice again for the first time and he said “mom!” Finally, on July 17, we were transported to Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin, Texas for rehab, six hours away from home. Once we were there he was required to do three hours of therapy a day. One hour sessions every day of each - physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy with thirty minute sessions on the weekends. Each day that passed Linkin made gains and improvements despite what the doctors had said. He began sitting up on his own, relearning how to take steps with the help of therapists, and his fine and gross motor skills began to show improvement. They had to take him to surgery to change his peg tube to a Mickey button due to many complications and it being defective. The day after they placed his Mickey button he passed his swallow study and was cleared to take thin liquids and purées by mouth. Exactly one week after that his speech therapist cleared him to eat solid foods. He was finally cleared to eat everything by mouth which meant no more feeds through his feeding tube. We were discharged to go home on September 5, 2019 We had been in the hospital for 86 days! Two days after being home he started walking independently and has since continued to improve both physically and mentally. We started PT, OT, and ST twice a week for two hours and hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy (HBOT) at Texas Sports Hyperbarics in Dallas, Texas. HBOT treatments last one hour each and he went in for one treatment a day, five days a week, which meant we traveled two hours to downtown Dallas for treatment and then two hours back home after treatment. In eight weeks we traveled over 10,000 miles for HBOT only. After his first round of HBOT we took a break, but we are hoping to do another round of forty treatments soon. We have continued PT, OT, and ST and keep seeing improvements but he is not close to being back to 100% fully recovered. We are researching many different kinds of other treatment options to get our little warrior back to being the boy he was prior to his tragic accident. I stayed with Linkin 24/7 during his time in the hospital. I went home to Kilgore only twice during those 86 days. It hurt to be away from my daughter, Layla, and their dad for days and weeks at a time, only getting to see them if they were able to make the drive to the hospitals. I wasn’t able to my part as a mother and homemaker, leaving the responsibilities back home solely on the shoulders of my fiance and our immediate family. Layla had to be enrolled in daycare since I wasn’t there to keep her at home, my fiance has had to work extra hours to cover the bills and our travel expenses. Medical bills are rolling in from various hospitals and departments for things that his insurance did not cover and our journey to full recovery is not over. Still ahead lies more treatments and therapies, including but not limited to the second round of HBOT, numerous follow up appointments, and more visits with therapists. No family is ever prepared for a tragedy like this, we certainly weren’t. If you feel called to do so and you are able, the money from this fundraiser will go towards funding Linkin’s treatments and therapies, family expenses, as well as all the travel costs associated with such. Accident date: 6-15-2019 LSU Children’s Hospital in Shreveport: 6/15/2019-7/17/2019 Rehab at DCH in Austin: 7/17/2019-9/5/2019 HBOT: 9/23/2019-11/22/2019 250+ miles a day, five days a week for 8 weeks. Plus food and other travel expenses PT, OT, ST: two hours twice a week, 25 minutes away Follow up visits in Austin, over 500 miles round trip plus hotel stay and food