Imagine going to sleep with a toothache and waking up a month later with half of your face gone. That’s what happened to my brother, Blake Daily. His toothache turned into Necrotizing Faciitis, also known as “Flesh Eating Bacteria”. 


On Valentine’s Day of this year, Blake had a bad toothache but wasn’t able to get into the dentist so was given a prescription of antibiotics over the phone. Two days later he was in excruciating pain and the left side of his face was swollen. His wife took him to the Emergency Room and after many tests, Blake was taken into emergency surgery. During the surgery, one of the doctors came out to tell his family that Blake most likely wouldn’t make it out of surgery. He did! 

During the surgery, he had 5 Surgeons working on him to get ahead of the disease. They said they had never seen anything like it; they saw his tissue turning black and moving right before their eyes. After the surgery, they didn’t expect him to make it through the night as his body had sepsis and his organs were shutting down. 
But again, he survived. 

Blake was on life support and in an induced coma for the first month and during that time he had 3 cardiac episodes where he “died”. And then he lived. 

We are so grateful to GOD and all the Doctors and Nurses at Mills Peninsula Hospita, l in Burlingame, California, that have taken care of Blake. He is permanently disabled, though. The left side of his face is paralyzed and disfigured. He may never get to eat real food and he is terrified to have anything with sugar as even a little could cause pneumonia if it gets in his lungs or even worse, if it gets in his tooth causing this horrible infection again. These are the realities of Blake’s life 24/7. Yes, he’s home and he’s alive. Blake is a survivor and will get to watch his 2 youngest children graduate from high school, walk his 2 daughters down the aisle at their weddings and hold his grand babies in his arms. 

Thank you  to everyone who has prayed with us. As you can imagine, dealing with the stress of this is enough. I realized the other day when I was visiting, when Blake told me it took over 3 months to get his first disability check, that they must be so stressed financially. Since his wife, Malia, had to quit her job to be Blake’s caregiver, neither  one of them is working and they are just trying to get through each day getting Blake to recover to a place where he can at least function on daily basis independently.

My hope is  that people will find it in their hearts to help in any way they can. I know Blake has  already told me they don’t want hand outs, but I also know if someone else was in trouble, my brother has such a big heart and would step up. I thank you in advance. 

If you would like a more detailed account of Blake’s story, I have made a journal on Caring Bridge during his long stay in the hospital. Blake’s Story on Caring Bridge