Support Mary Johnson-Beth Nix's Fight for Recovery

The journey of the life of Mary Johnson maiden name, Beth Nix married name!! Beth had her 1st hip surgery when she was 27 years old. Beth had no problems for 30 years with it until she finally wore it out! 3 years ago she had

to finally have another one. She done good with it for about a year and then she got an infection in it and they had to keep going in and doing a clean out every time for over a year!

In October of 2023 she had to go in and have another clean out of the hip done due to infection again! She was doing pretty good with it. Home health was coming out once a week to check on everything and her Daughter Tosha was doing everything else to take care of her. Then November 22-2023 she started running fever and hurting pretty bad and had some pus coming out of her incision. November 23-2023 is when it all started going bad. Beth was really sick, running high fever and lots of infection coming out her incision. She couldn’t get up and walk for Tosha to take her to the hospital so she had to call the ambulance. Winfield ER transferred her to Grandview because she was septic. They said if she hadn’t of went she would’ve died. Her orthopedic wanted to go back in and do more clean out. November 24-2023 she went back to the operating room for a wash out of the hip. November 26-2023 she told the dr she was having a lot of pain so they done a ct scan to check eveeything and she had a fracture at the bottom of the hip. November 27 she had to go back to the operating room and they had to go in put cables, a cage around it to try to protect it. Well everything was going good till January 2024 and guess what she got sick again and had to be transported back to Birmingham. This time the orthopedic decided to take her hip completely out and leave it out. At this point Beth hadn’t walked since the end of November 2023. The orthopedic and infectious doctor decided it would be best to leave it out for a few months and Beth stay on antibiotics through a iv port in her arm. Beth was on the iv port with antibiotics for 6 months. So by this time Beth had to learn how to just hop around on one leg instead of just laying in a bed all the time. On April 26-2024 they decided it was time to put the new hip back in. Beth wasn’t showing any signs of infection on her incision! Once beth got home and they started physical therapy on her she started getting her strength back and was walking with her walker. Home health was coming out and seeing her and Tosha was taking care of getting her bandages and stuff cleaned up. Come June 13th Beth started getting really sick again and running fever. Tosha had to call the ambulance again to come get her. Beth had got septic again. They transported her to Birmingham and found out she had infection in her hip so they had to go in and do another clean out. On June 15th Beth started complaining of hurting right above her knee so they done a ct scan and it showed that she had a fracture in her femur so they took her back to the operating room and had to put a plate on the femur! While she was in the hospital and they was looking over her scans something showed up on her liver so they started doing some more testing and found out she had cirrhosis of the liver. They are saying that some of the medicine she has been on for years is what has caused the cirrhosis because Beth has never been a drinker or anything. They didn’t think that it was that bad so they wasn’t to concerned about it just said as soon as she got over the hip surgery that she needed to see a liver dr. Beth got to come home on June 26th she still wasn’t doing to good. Beth had lost her appetite a couple months before this and nobody could get her to hardly eat much at all. On July 4th Beth started running a fever of 102-103, they got it to break so the home health nurse came out on July 5th to see her. She still had a low grade fever and she had a little red spot on one part of her incision but that was it. On Saturday morning July 6th Beth hollered at Tosha to come there and when she got in there Beth was soaked in blood. Tosha got her all cleaned up and went to change her bandage and when she took it off it was horrible. It looked like someone with the flesh eating disease. The skin had pulled away from the staples, the staples was down in the incision and the skin around it was black. They had to call the ambulance back to come get her and take her to Birmingham! They told the family that she had an infection in her hip again and also that her protein level was very dangerous and she was really bad malnutrition from her not wanting to eat. July 8-2024 they decided to go in and do another wash out of the hip! They advised Tosha that they wouldn’t know what all they would have to do once they got in there and opened her up. The dr came out and advised them that the plate that was put in there was to big and they had to remove it and put rods and pins in her femur and down her leg. After this surgery she came out on a ventilator and feeding tube. On July 9th they took her off the ventilator but left the feeding tube in for a couple more days. Beth had started trying to eat some but just couldn’t do it. Tosha had finally talked to the dr about getting her put on a feeding tube so she could get some nutrition in her body to try and get her a little stronger. From this point Beth really wasn’t showing much of improvement but they was still pushing fluids and antibiotics through her system. By this time Beth was very weak, tired and sick! A few days later Beth got back to her self and physical therapy was coming in trying to work with her but she was just weak and couldn’t do much. They wanted to keep Beth in the hospital for a week or so because of the rods and pins. The case manager told Tosha on Friday July 26th that Beth was going to be coming home by Ambulance on Monday July 29th. They wanted to let her know she should get everything set up for her. On Monday July 29th the dr. Called Tosha and told her that he wasn’t going to be able to release her that all her labs were very bad and he didn’t feel comfortable doing that. So as the week went on Beth started declining. On August 2 Beth started having trouble breathing and had got worse the dr decided then that he wanted her took to ICU now! August 3rd Beth got to where she was getting a little delusional and confused. She had started talking about her mother and son that was in heaven. Her O2 was doing ok so they turned it down. August 4th her O2 dropped to 80 and they had turn it back on and this was the worst day for the family! Beth was laying on her bed and Danielle ( Tosha’s ) sister was sitting there talking to her and all of a sudden she went unresponsive. The last words that Beth spoke was she told Danielle to tell everyone she LOVED THEM. They had to put Beth on a ventilator at 100% and put her on sedation medicine. On Monday August 5th the orthopedic came around and told Tosha they was going to go back in and do another clean out of the hip because of the infection. Beth done good through the surgery and got to come down to 80% on ventilator but was still on her sedation medicine. Later that night Tosha and Abi got her to open her eyes and she had tears pouring out of them. On Tuesday she got to come down some more on the ventilator and had some company and she opened her eyes a little and had tears coming out! On Wednesday August 7th she got to where she wouldn’t even open her eyes and she was regaining a lot of fluid. The dr said she had more input than out put so he put her on lasix so her output would be more than the input. They tried taking her off the sedation medicine to see if they could lower the ventilator but she couldn’t tolerate it so they put her on a lighter sedation medicine. At this point Beth isn’t opening her eyes or responding when they put the light in her eye. Today August 8th the dr has talked to Tosha and told her they think Beth might have a little bit of infection back in her hip but at the moment they aren’t worried about that right now because beth is in worse shape than the hip. They said Beths organs are in bad shape and that her liver is trying to shut down. Her liver is so infected because of the cirrhosis. The dr said that if he knew she would make it out of surgery that he would be more than willing to amputate her leg but that wouldn’t help with all the other infection going on that Beth was in very bad shape and that they was doing everything they could for her!!!!

As of August 9-2024 the doctors have came in and talked to Tosha an advised her that they have done everything they can for her mom so they are going to transfer Beth to the Main UAB! The Dr said that Beth’s liver was sepsis and that the liver dr wanted her transferred. Tosha had to stop working back in October to stay at home and take care of her mother. Tosha is really the only child. She has ( Danielle ) that is just like a sister to her but she has 3 kids and is a teacher and can’t help that much with giving Tosha a break from the hospital. Tosha has 2 kids and one is in school and can’t help that much either. It’s just very tough on Tosha having to go back and forth home to her daughter then back to her mom on top of bills piling up, gas money, food money and etc with her not being able to work!! We are asking the good LORD above to put his hands on Beth and heal her body so she can get back home to her family!

It has taken a lot of pride for Tosha to allow this to be posted. She as well as her momma has always stood on their own feet. This has been extremely hard on Tosha. Her momma has always been the person she has leaned on, if needed and likewise. It has taken not only an emotional, mental, physical but financial toll on her too. With that being said, if God lays it on your heart to donate any amount, please know that it will be deeply appreciated. Tosha and Mary (Beth) both have huge hearts and thank you even if you can’t donate but ask for your prayers.

I would just like to be able to see and stay with my momma everyday and be able to keep the bills paid! It’s very tough not being able to work right now!