BIG. Part 3. Details.

Miracles.

By my third day in hospital, I had already experienced about a million of them.  Performing one after another after another, God had set my BIG up perfectly so that my life and my leg would be saved and we would get through this.  All of us.  You and me and us and them.  My God blessed me with amazing aunts and uncles.  My Aunt Mary happens to be a dog lover, so without question, she went to my apartment and scooped up Madison, who had now been by herself for almost 24 hours.  THANK GOD for that.  Jon and I don't know what we would've done if they didn't take our baby into their home like she was their own and keep her for 2 months for us.  My Grandpa has an extra car that he was able to give to my parents to drive for the new few months as they stayed in Illinois to take care of me.  My brother and sister-in-law happen to live 15 minutes away from the next hospital I was about to go to for the next six weeks.  This allowed for my parents to be able to be at the hospital with me all the time with a free place to stay so that they didn't have to live in a hotel for two months.  My mom's job allowed her to leave indefinitely, without question, to take care of me as long as I needed...which, as we found out, would end up being several months.  Miracle after miracle.  Some might call it luck, but I don't believe in luck.  I think everything was orchestrated perfectly by God so that we could get through this horrific tragedy. Heck, even the fact that I moved up to the Chicago suburbs two years ago was a blessing....because I ended up living 20 minutes from the hospital that would save my life...one of the only hospitals in the nation that knows what the heck to do with such a rare and deadly disease.

A major miracle happened that Monday night after my third surgery.  Things were looking worse and worse for my chances of living, with or without a leg.  The surgeon told my family that she wasn't sure what to do next and we should probably start looking for somewhere to transfer me.  She told my family that she wasn't sure if any other hospital would take me, however, because I was so critical by then, they wouldn't want to risk accepting the transfer.  My family started looking on the internet for neighboring hospitals, horrified as it was becoming more and more apparent that I was in a place that could not save me.  My ICU nurse that day happened to be my guardian angel.  When she came on shift that afternoon, she told my family that she hadn't been able to sleep the night before because she was so worried about me.  She told them that she had a friend who was a nurse in the Burn ICU at Loyola and she had heard that they specialize in necrotizing fasciitis.  Right then and there, she called her friend and told her about me.  Her nurse friend from Loyola told her attending doctor in the Burn ICU and guess freakin' what??  That amazing physician told them to get me over there.  To accept an uninsured patient is almost unheard of.  But after hearing my story and the condition I was in, that doctor wanted to save me.  Within an hour, I was in an ambulance hooked up to a hundred lines and with a ventilator breathing for me.  Jon rode in the ambulance with me and recounted to me recently how terrifying it was knowing that my fragile life was in the hands of 2 medics and a bunch of machines to keep me alive.

 My family-- all thirty of them since no one had left my side for the last 72 hours-- followed in a few cars at around 1 in the morning.  No one was leaving at that point.  My cousin Bryan (my man-of-honor in my wedding) had even flown in as soon as he heard I was in the hospital.  I cannot tell you how much it meant to me when I found out how many of my family members hadn't left my side.  The ICU waiting room was filled with pillows and blankets as they slept for a few hours at a time on the floor when they weren't praying over me at my bedside or talking to doctors.  I laugh when I imagine my fiancé, parents, brother, sisters, sister's boyfriend, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws... all in the meetings with the doctors regarding my condition and plan of care.  What an AMAZING family I have.  I am so unbelievably blessed.  

When they arrived at Loyola and met the team of physicians that would end up saving my life, my family FINALLY could breathe.  The Burn ICU at Loyola is literally one of the BEST and ONLY places in the country that know how to take care of necrotizing fasciitis.  They assured my family that they knew what they what they were doing and I was in the exact right place I needed to be.  God gave me the one of the best places in the world for my illness TWENTY MINUTES from my house!  I was immediately assessed by the team.  They drew a thousand labs.  They switched out every single line I had to their own.  Two million new meds were started.  And they placed my leg in an "antibiotic bath" to assist in killing the bacteria and keeping new bacteria out.  "We got this," they told my family.  They explained that I was still very, very critical and death was not out of the question yet.  I had a long way to go and all we could do is wait and pray.  But I was in the right place now.

The next day, I was taken back in surgery...number 4 in the last 4 days.  Each surgery wreaked more havoc on my weak, septic body.  My heart rate, even on the vent, remained in the 150s.  My temp lingered around 103-104 for WEEKS.  Surgery #4's purpose was to examine, clean & debride.  My little heart kept beating, fast as it was, and I got through that surgery.  The day after that, Dr. M called my parents at 6 a.m. (they were sleeping at my brother's since I couldn't have overnight visitors on the Burn unit) and told them that I was going back in again.  Another surgery.  Surgery #5 included more cleaning, more muscle/fascia dissection and debridement.  Wound vacs were placed on each of the wounds.  A wound vac is a vacuum dressing to promote healing in major wounds. The therapy involves the application of sub-atmospheric pressure to the wound and promotes wound healing by drawing out fluid from the wound by vacuum and increasing blood flow to the area.  Let me tell you....wound vacs are the second most painful thing I experienced during my entire illness.  That pressure and pulling on open wounds is excruciating.  And I screamed when they changed the wound vacs (about every 3 days).  Luckily, I was vented for most of the time I had the wound vacs, but I was awake for one wound vac change and it was insanely painful.  I cried and cried, clenching the hand of  my Dr. G.  He kept telling the nurse to give me more pain meds, but nothing touched it.  Imagine putting a strong forceful Dyson vacuum on an 2 ft. long incision and letting it pull at your exposed muscle.  I just had to suffer through it and he angrily told the residents that they had better never touch my wound vacs again without putting me under anesthesia.

I continued to be vented for the next several weeks as my body fought the infection.  At that point, there was nothing more to do except let my body and the antibiotics fight and repair.  12 hours a day, my family sat at my bedside, talking to an Amy that couldn't answer them back.  They held me and prayed over me.  I hated being on the vent and would try pulling it out constantly until I had to be restrained.  Even then, my unconscious body wriggled all over the bed, trying to free itself.  At one point, the doctor happened to see me almost completely fight myself right off the bed, which would have ripped out my lines and breathing tube and probably would've killed me.  Even though I was a nurse, I was a bad patient.  I was in a horrible amount of pain and even though I don't remember it now (thank God), it was very apparent by my facial expressions and my movement on the bed.  Often my family would walk into my room and find one leg (completely wound vac'd, covered and splinted) hanging straight up in the air.  How or why I did that, I have no idea, but thinking about it does make me laugh now.  I always tell my family I wish they would've taken a picture of me on the vent so I could see what I looked like-- I'm a nurse, after all.  I'm curious.  They remind me that it would've been quite disgusting and morbid to take pictures of someone who might die at any moment.  But I think it would be interesting to watch myself at that point.  I'm damn lucky I don't remember it, however.

Prayers were being sent up to Heaven in droves.  My story was spreading like wildfire and God was listening and providing.  Do you want to know what you guys did to save me and us?  That comes next.  To be continued.