Flores Family & Friends Fund

Two weeks ago, 6 year old Jacob Flores was diagnosed with Flu A, specifically H3N2. Jacob continued to get sicker and sicker and his parents took him to his pediatrician’s after hours clinic where he was told to just go home and hydrate and he would be fine. A few hours later, Jason and Marisa took Jacob to the emergency room in Norman where he was diagnosed  with pneumonia covering his entire right lung and was taken by ambulance to OU Children’s Hospital. Upon arrival at Children’s Hospital, Jacob’s white blood cell count was around 1,000 and he was put on 100% oxygen and admitted. The next morning, Jacob underwent a procedure that drained the equivalent of two soda cans of fluid from the lung cavity. Jacob was intubated, a chest tube was inserted and he was moved to the ICU. Jacob also had an infection in his blood and he was put on 3 antibiotics. Over the next couple of days the pneumonia continued to spread into the left lung. Jacob also maintained a high fever. The doctors discussed another procedure which would require more invasive efforts, but were able to avoid it with the changing of antibiotics. At this point, Marisa (Jacob’s mother) was admitted to another hospital suffering from a pulmonary embolism in each lung. Marisa was given a significant amount of blood thinner and eventually discharged on bed rest. Meanwhile, Jacob underwent a blood transfusion and continued to need significant blood pressure support for extremely low blood pressure.  The breathing tube was finally removed yesterday and Jacob is starting physical therapy!! However, he is still in ICU, still has a feeding tube, and still has a persistent fever.  The fever has steadily held at high numbers for the past two weeks and doctors say if it is not gone by Wednesday he will have a CT scan and the results will determine the direction they take.

Marisa is at home resting. She tires often as the doctor said she would and is still having some pain, but is in good spirits. Please continue to keep this sweet family in your prayers and if you are able to contribute to this fund to help with the extensive medical bills that are still mounting and home health care  for Jacob once he is finally able to come home (so glad we can finally start to think in these terms) as he will need a nurse to take care of his PICC line which will stay in for months, physical therapy, continued respiratory therapy, and countless other needs we aren’t even aware of yet.