Sam Willcoxson - Life Support - 4 kids

WHO I AM:

Hi Friends - my name is Shannon Wilburn and I am a friend of Allison Willcoxson, Sam's wife. We met through my business Coal Creek Farm Jenks. I've not known Allison for a long time, but what I do know about her and her family has me wanting more, more time and friendship with her. I'm sure if you are a long-time friend of the family, you can agree that the Willcoxsons are special. Now, let's get to why we are all here.

WHAT HAPPENED TO SAM?:

NOTE: I'm going to give a quick note here before I get to the details of what has happened. Allison has been super duper private about what is going on - not because it's super secret, but because she has a lot of people to protect - her husband who was on life support and her precious 4 children under the age of 6. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with that - and not having your soul mate to consult makes it equally difficult. I have received permission to share with you, those that love and care for her, and friends of friends who want to help, but we want to be cognizant that this is her story to tell her children - so let's let her do that. :)

As I type this on January 17th, 30-year-old Sam, loving husband of Allison, college-educated mechanical engineer, hard-working father to Jude, age 6, Scarlet, age 5, Holland age 4 and Elle, 19 months is in ICU - and the doctors and nurses are closely monitoring him and his brain activity.

After 18 days, they have a diagnosis, but not a cause - and things are still super scary. We believe in the supernatural power of the Lord and the GREAT HOPE HE offers, but also need to prepare for the reality of what the next few weeks and months could look like.

MY PLAN:

I plan to give you guys the Diagnosis, his current state as I type today, the great financial need and what the funds will be used for - and then I will share all the details of the last 18 days for those that want it. It's a lot!

DIAGNOSIS:

Encephalitis - per Allison, he has a severe case of this that nearly killed him, and also Meningitis - still unknown cause.

SAM'S CURRENT STATE ON DAY 18:

In Allison's words,

"Sam can hold a conversation with us! He will trail off into saying non-sensical phrases and says a lot of things that he believes to be true but are just very real dreams/thoughts he was having while he was in a coma.

The neurologist stated, “Based on the way his brain looks on the scans, I would not expect to be able to walk into his room and communicate with him at all.” It is HUGE that Sam can even communicate with us at all, so we are so thankful for that.

We are still working to find the source of the infection, but things are finally trending upward. Sam will still be hospitalized for an undetermined amount of time while his brain heals, and then will need to go to inpatient acute rehabilitation while he re-learns how to do basic things such as walk. He also still has double vision and will need to have lots of rehab to try and get his eyesight back to normal.

We are hoping that as the brain swelling decreases, he will be able to regain some of these abilities."

FINANCIAL NEEDS:

Let me be the first to tell you that Allison did not ask for a GoFundMe. In fact, she all but fought me on this. It took quite a bit of convincing and a look at the future for her to say yes. She was very forthcoming with expenses and income and needs great and small. Knowing what I know (my hubby was hospitalized for 48 days and intubated for 17 of those days in 2020), the financial component of this journey is just a small part - there is the physical, spiritual and emotional component that are just as laborious. It was my goal to rally the troops so to speak to take one worry off of her plate. YOU are the "troops" You can take a great burden off of her shoulders - and allow her to be present both physically and mentally for her 4 kids and her husband during this time.

After hearing from Allison about expenses and income over the next few months I suggested we set the goal at $50,000 - she may or may not have freaked out a bit - stating that she felt bad asking for money. I told her that she isn't asking for money, that I'm asking for money for her. With some back and forth - we originally agreed on $35,000 - and I don't really think that this is going to be enough - but it was going to be a start. (She suggested $10,000 - and I pushed back hard) We looked at medical expenses (thank you Lord for insurance), deductibles in both 2022 and 2023 that will need to be met and the fact that Sam is the breadwinner/provider of this beautiful family of 6. We calculated that Sam's work is letting them use 2023 vacation days and FMLA - but we anticipate that Sam is going to be out of work for quite some time - likely 4-6 months - and that is just a guess at this point since he is still in ICU. When this beautiful community donated half of the $35,000 in the first 12 hours, I came back and increased the goal to $50,000. She can be mad at me later. I know how fast these dollars will go - and I thank you from the bottom of my heart that your generosity will and is bringing Allison to her knees. And I have a lump in my throat as I type. God is so good to us through HIS people.

Allison is a part time nurse and photographer and does both of these things when she can -but she is primarily a caregiver to 4 children under the age of 6. There will be childcare costs that will now be needed. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of additional costs that come with caring for someone who is going to need to learn to do the basics again - as I said, it's a LOT.

If you are able to be generous, I ask that you prayerfully consider doing so. Allison let me know that the doctors and nurses allowed the two oldest kids to come to the hospital recently. Jude and Scarlet were able to see their dad. While Sam could not remember his children's names, he recognized them...and the tears fell.

DETAILS:

I know that there are those that want ALL. THE. DETAILS! So, Allison has done a great job of keeping track of what has happened day to day. I am going to copy and paste what has happened in case you want to read.

"Hello friends – thank you so much for your kind words and the way you have blessed my family during this difficult time. This has been a crazy January so far and I am still in shock that all of this has happened and that it’s not just a bad dream I’m trying to wake up from.

There are still a lot of unknowns in Sam’s case. Some parts of this are just copied & pasted from my quick hospital notes I jot down, just FYI.

The backstory:

Thursday 12/29 –

Sam comes home from work early not feeling well & went to sleep for the night around 6pm (very unusual). I checked his temperature at about 9pm and it was 103.7F. He takes some Tylenol, and the fever broke in the middle of the night.

Friday 12/30 is a good day. Sam’s fever is gone and he is able to watch the kids while Allison worked, and he even brings all the kids over to his mom’s for dinner. We have a movie night together that night.

Saturday 12/31 –

0400 – Sam wakes up with a massive headache at 4:00am and goes to take a shower to see if it helps. I wake up when I hear him screaming for me from the shower. When I get there, he is on his hands and knees vomiting and says he has a massive headache and is very dizzy. He refuses to go to ER at this point (despite my best efforts) and wants to take some Tylenol and go back to sleep.

0830 - I check on him and his left eye was occasionally turning outwards and he had a bad headache still. I tried to get him to go to ER but he declines.

0900 - I don’t feel good about it & tell him we’re going to the ER. His left eyelid is very droopy. I load the kids up and then when I try to help Sam walk, he is unable to and immediately falls over. I call an ambulance and they take him to the trauma ER.

1200 - I get kids dropped off & see him. They did a CT and it was a positive marker for a stroke because they saw bleeding in the brainstem. He’s admitted to Neuro trauma ICU.

1900 - They do a brain MRI to see things more clearly. He did not have a “stroke”, but there is a hemorrhage in the brain stem. There is a good amount of swelling/inflammation surrounding this area. They also see demyelination of the myelin sheaths. (These are like a covering/“insulation” around nerves — they allow electrical impulses to transmit easily along the nerve cell). So any damage to his myelin sheath affects the ability of the nerve to transmit signals and can cause a wide range of neurological symptoms.)

*At this point Sam can’t walk, speech is very slurred, eyes are not working correctly/double vision, severe headache.*

Hospital Stay:

A lumbar puncture showed that Sam has meningitis – unsure of cause. All the tests that they have sent have come back as negative, so we are basically throwing the book at him and hoping we hit it.

Over the next couple days, Sam goes in and out of consciousness and becomes very combative/delusional to the point of needing to be restrained. He attempted to get out of bed alone – despite not being able to walk – and fell and hit his head. His high fever comes and goes.

When asked simple questions like “What is your name?”, Sam would answer things like “24325” or just be completely unresponsive. Lots of mumbling nonsensical phrases.

During “awake” moments, occupational therapy came by to see him. They helped him sit up on side of bed. He would heavily lean to the right side and backwards when unassisted. He was unable to sit or stand unassisted. Sitting caused him to be very nauseous, dizzy, and headache.

Rather than having just meningitis, it is determined that he has meningoencephalitis.

This means that he has both meningitis AND encephalitis.

Meningitis is inflammation/swelling caused by an infection of the meninges (the membranes that protect the brain & spinal cord). Encephalitis is an inflammation/swelling of the actual brain tissue. So basically – Sam’s infection has moved into the deeper brain tissue.

They believe the swelling caused the brain tissues to be leaky and caused the bleed in the brain stem.

EEG was done to look at brain activity and CT of head repeated due to mental status.

CT results did not look good. The amount of swelling on his brain had increased and brain bleed is still seen.

On Tuesday 1/3, Sam was alert in the morning, but by 11:00am things went downhill quickly.

We didn’t know it at the time, but we wouldn’t see him conscious again for over a week from now.

He was uncontrollably hyperventilating/breathing way too fast (around 40 respirations/minute). There was concern that he was having seizures and at high risk of aspirating. The decision was made to put him on a ventilator and sedate him to give his brain a rest and allow his body time to heal. He was intubated & put in a medically induced coma.

On the evening of 1/4, Sam has a full body convulsion seizure. After reviewing previous EEG data, he was having multiple seizures all morning up until when he was sedated and intubated. Sam has another seizure on 1/5.

A second lumbar puncture is done. This revealed that his intracranial pressure is still very high and that there is still a rampant infection going on.

Sam was on life support (ventilator and in medically induced coma) for 7 days. Ultrasounds of his legs showed that he had multiple extensive blood clots in his left leg and both arms. We are unsure why his body began clotting like crazy. The clot in his left leg extended from his ankle to his groin. A heparin (blood thinner) drip was started, despite the brain bleed.

Part of the large clot in his left leg broke off and traveled to his lungs, causing a massive saddle Pulmonary Embolism (PE), and causing large amounts of strain on his heart. A cardiologist was quickly included in Sam’s care and surgery was done to remove this massive clot from his lungs. This clot, once removed, measured 9 inches long. They were not able to remove it all but got most of it. It was one of the largest ones some of the doctors had ever seen and we are still so shocked that he somehow survived this. It honestly should have killed him very quickly. He will be on blood thinners for a while – please pray that no more of the clots break off and travel to his lungs.

The lumbar puncture was repeated -- to get more CSF to send to labs, to check to see what his opening pressure was (a marker for the level of pressure happening inside the brain), and to check to see if the infection was getting better or worse. The opening pressure was very high – signifying lots of increased pressure still happening in his brain, but the infection numbers looked slightly improved – still very bad but improved.

After days of zero response to stimulation or following commands, he occasionally began to do things like squeeze our hand if we asked him to or wiggle his toes.

He has random tremors that happen but has not had any more seizures so far since January 5.

Sam developed aspiration pneumonia. A procedure was done to try to remove large amounts of secretions from his lungs to help open his lungs.

For a couple days after extubation, we were very worried that we were going to have to re-intubate him due to the way he kept slipping in and out of consciousness and was unable to control his breathing again. We have thankfully thus far avoided this!

They are very concerned about Sam’s neurological state. The EEG is showing that he has much less function of the left side of his brain currently. The MRI results do not look good.

CURRENTLY:

Sam is able to hold a conversation with us! He will trail off into saying non-sensical phrases and says a lot of things that he believes to be true but are actually just very real dreams/thoughts he was having while he was in a coma.

The neurologist stated, “Based on the way his brain looks on the scans, I would not expect to be able to walk into his room and communicate with him at all.” It is HUGE that Sam is able to even communicate with us at all, so we are so thankful for that.

We are still working to find the source of the infection, but things are finally trending upwards. Sam will still be hospitalized for an undetermined amount of time while his brain heals, and then will need to go to inpatient acute rehabilitation while he re-learns how to do basic things such as walk. He also still has double vision and will need to have lots of rehab to try and get his eyesight back to normal.

We are hoping that as the brain swelling decreases, he will be able to regain some of these abilities.

I appreciate you all so much. I don’t know what I would be doing without everyone’s support and generosity.

I have had so so many people reach out to me wanting to help.

I’m sorry I have not replied to you, but know I have just been overwhelmed and very busy. It’s been nearly impossible trying to care for 4 kids at home & keep their routines as normal as possible while also trying to be there for Sam in the ICU every day.

If you are wanting to help with medical expenses, Sam being off work for an indeterminate amount of time, or food/grocery/house cleaning help, the kids and I would appreciate that so very much.

Love you ALL,

Allison, Sam, Jude, Scarlet, Holland, and Elle "

TWO FINAL ASKS:

Please remember Sam in your prayers - for supernatural healing and for all of his memories to return to fullness - and as quickly as possible. I'm sure that there will be more prayer requests to come.

And - please please SHARE this GoFundMe. Share it on Facebook, on Instagram, text it to friends, whatever you can do to help. The best way that this works is by sharing - and we never know who might be touched by Sam and Allison's story and be in a position to want to help.

"Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can." John Wesley