Help the Greens
Donation protected
“Tuesday December 28th Dixon Charlotte and I sat down for dinner and ended our evening with our usual weeknight routine - bath time, milk & snuggles, story time, then lay Charlotte down to sleep for the night with the same mild cold symptoms she’d had since Christmas Eve. 30 minutes later Charlotte’s “barking” cough began. Then the vomiting started, then heavy belly breathing. The next morning we were advised to skip the pediatrician and head to St Joseph’s ER where they kindly took Charlotte immediately and began nebulizer treatment on her for respiratory distress. The distress persisted so we were advised by the doctors to transfer downtown to UMMC where the PICU would be available if need be. They loaded Charlotte into the ambulance all alone - due to Covid protocol neither of us could be with her.
Once we made it to UMMC Charlotte was already set up in a bed with oxygen tubes in the PICU. Wednesday into Thursday and Thursday into Friday were a blur but it was a lot of the same - working on a balance of steroids and other medicine to treat her up and down fever cough and heavy breathing from what they diagnosed her with and Dixon coined the “trifecta” - Rhino Virus, on top of RSV, on top of Croup. Our poor girl wasn’t herself and couldn’t settle herself (understandably so) for two days so I knew we’d likely have one or two more days at the hospital with her. I was still wearing her vomit from Tuesday night and blood from an IV she squirmed out of so Friday morning I raced home to shower and bring a couple of days worth of clothes back for the 3 of us.
This is when shit hit the fan.
Dixon begins texting me updates - they want to do an EKG - now Echo scan - now chest X-ray. The X-ray showed an overwhelming infection in her lungs. Then came the phone call. They were going to have to intubate her and had to do it immediately. The doctor gets on the phone and explains it to me as I’m back in my car racing back downtown. Charlottes health declined so rapidly they had to make the call to not wait another 25 minutes for me to get back and give her a kiss. I had to give my “I love you Charlotte be strong be brave” over the phone, sobbing and flying down 95S. Her voice was so hoarse by now I couldn’t even hear her last “I love you mommy”.
I finally get there and give her a kiss, already intubated. It gets worse from here: it wasn’t enough, she wasn’t taking to it, her lungs were shutting down because of how fast the infection was taking over so they’d have to move to the next size machine. But her airway was so swollen at this point that wasn’t going to work. They send Dixon and me down the hall to the family room where they tell us in order to save her life they’re going to have to hook her up to ECMO - life support that oxygenates the blood, allowing the heart and lungs to rest. We don’t even have time to comprehend this but say yes of course whatever you have to do to save her life. Then the next hit: it wasn’t the right size Cannula (aka the tubes they put inside her that will connect to the machine). I think this is when the chaplan walked in. Poor David, I can’t remember exactly our first words to him but it was something along the lines of chaplains don’t come in unless someone is dying and you are not about to deliver that news to us about our baby. Before We knew it We went from crawling out of our skin pacing the floor to opening up to chaplan David about Charlotte and how incredible she is. He then suggested we pray which we did. We prayed and begged crying for our girl to have one more shot at life.
The door opens again with someone telling us they have the right size Cannula and it was a success - she was officially on life support- our Charlotte gets her one more shot. We immediately start praying harder, and asking our family members to pray for her as well. A while later the doctor enters the room again - to say that bit of time between operations finding the right size tube could have caused damage due to lack of oxygen. Oh, and now they have to transfer her down the hall, to another floor, to cut a hole in her heart to release pressure that builds up when connected to ECMO as well as installing drains to remove fluid surrounding her heart. This is when we sent out the request to anyone to start helping us pray for Charlotte too.
We didn’t think we could ever be as shocked as we were December 31st. Yet here we are blown away, speechless, at how many people are praying for Charlotte with us. Since that operation NYE we have also found out she has additional complications including a blood infection (staph) as well as Covid antibodies (meaning potential for MIS-C) on top of all she is already dealing with.
But on this machine her organs are able to rest while we attack the viruses and bacteria and take it on day by day issue by issue. It is unreal what she endured and has already overcome. We still have a long long journey but she’s proven ten fold that she’s a fighter and we have already had such promising improvements - the infection already looks under control, the Echo showed a good strong heart yesterday as well as a good CT scan and EEG - just to name a few.
We want everyone to know the impact their prayer has had on Charlotte and on us. Thank you over and over and over again. Times a million. And please keep the prayers coming until we get to walk through our front door with our baby girl.
#prayersforcgg #onedayatatime #littlebutstrong #littlebutbrave #dontgiveup #ourgirl”
Dixon, Kim and Charlotte have a long road ahead. We just want them to concentrate on Char and getting her healthy and bringing her home.
Once we made it to UMMC Charlotte was already set up in a bed with oxygen tubes in the PICU. Wednesday into Thursday and Thursday into Friday were a blur but it was a lot of the same - working on a balance of steroids and other medicine to treat her up and down fever cough and heavy breathing from what they diagnosed her with and Dixon coined the “trifecta” - Rhino Virus, on top of RSV, on top of Croup. Our poor girl wasn’t herself and couldn’t settle herself (understandably so) for two days so I knew we’d likely have one or two more days at the hospital with her. I was still wearing her vomit from Tuesday night and blood from an IV she squirmed out of so Friday morning I raced home to shower and bring a couple of days worth of clothes back for the 3 of us.
This is when shit hit the fan.
Dixon begins texting me updates - they want to do an EKG - now Echo scan - now chest X-ray. The X-ray showed an overwhelming infection in her lungs. Then came the phone call. They were going to have to intubate her and had to do it immediately. The doctor gets on the phone and explains it to me as I’m back in my car racing back downtown. Charlottes health declined so rapidly they had to make the call to not wait another 25 minutes for me to get back and give her a kiss. I had to give my “I love you Charlotte be strong be brave” over the phone, sobbing and flying down 95S. Her voice was so hoarse by now I couldn’t even hear her last “I love you mommy”.
I finally get there and give her a kiss, already intubated. It gets worse from here: it wasn’t enough, she wasn’t taking to it, her lungs were shutting down because of how fast the infection was taking over so they’d have to move to the next size machine. But her airway was so swollen at this point that wasn’t going to work. They send Dixon and me down the hall to the family room where they tell us in order to save her life they’re going to have to hook her up to ECMO - life support that oxygenates the blood, allowing the heart and lungs to rest. We don’t even have time to comprehend this but say yes of course whatever you have to do to save her life. Then the next hit: it wasn’t the right size Cannula (aka the tubes they put inside her that will connect to the machine). I think this is when the chaplan walked in. Poor David, I can’t remember exactly our first words to him but it was something along the lines of chaplains don’t come in unless someone is dying and you are not about to deliver that news to us about our baby. Before We knew it We went from crawling out of our skin pacing the floor to opening up to chaplan David about Charlotte and how incredible she is. He then suggested we pray which we did. We prayed and begged crying for our girl to have one more shot at life.
The door opens again with someone telling us they have the right size Cannula and it was a success - she was officially on life support- our Charlotte gets her one more shot. We immediately start praying harder, and asking our family members to pray for her as well. A while later the doctor enters the room again - to say that bit of time between operations finding the right size tube could have caused damage due to lack of oxygen. Oh, and now they have to transfer her down the hall, to another floor, to cut a hole in her heart to release pressure that builds up when connected to ECMO as well as installing drains to remove fluid surrounding her heart. This is when we sent out the request to anyone to start helping us pray for Charlotte too.
We didn’t think we could ever be as shocked as we were December 31st. Yet here we are blown away, speechless, at how many people are praying for Charlotte with us. Since that operation NYE we have also found out she has additional complications including a blood infection (staph) as well as Covid antibodies (meaning potential for MIS-C) on top of all she is already dealing with.
But on this machine her organs are able to rest while we attack the viruses and bacteria and take it on day by day issue by issue. It is unreal what she endured and has already overcome. We still have a long long journey but she’s proven ten fold that she’s a fighter and we have already had such promising improvements - the infection already looks under control, the Echo showed a good strong heart yesterday as well as a good CT scan and EEG - just to name a few.
We want everyone to know the impact their prayer has had on Charlotte and on us. Thank you over and over and over again. Times a million. And please keep the prayers coming until we get to walk through our front door with our baby girl.
#prayersforcgg #onedayatatime #littlebutstrong #littlebutbrave #dontgiveup #ourgirl”
Dixon, Kim and Charlotte have a long road ahead. We just want them to concentrate on Char and getting her healthy and bringing her home.
“Though she be little, she is brave”
We ask, or beg, that everyone please keep our Charlotte Grace in your prayers. She’s been through so much these past few days and there are still many obstacles and a long way to go. She’s a tough little girl, the best little girl, and we just need to bring her home. #prayersforcgg @dixon_green
Organiser and beneficiary
Whitney Christmas
Organiser
Graystone, MD
Dixon Green
Beneficiary