JULY 4, 2015 (continuation from earlier blog post http://suesanctuary.blogspot.com/2015/06/mid-year-crisis.html)
Today (July 3) is a glorious day ... after 10 nights in ICU (and the earlier 2 nights in a private hospital) our sister Abby is finally transferred out from ICU to a normal ward.
As she had fasciotomy performed to save her limb (left arm), her entire arm is of no use at the moment.. the doctor has not ascertained the exact extent of the dead muscles but we are told she still has enough muscles left to regain most use of her left arm, if not 100%... the road ahead will be a slow and painful one for her as she struggle with relearning how to move and use her left arm. She can barely clench her fingers now and she cannot unflex her grasp without the help of her right hand.
She still needs to be hospitalised as the doctor needed to perform further operations on her and they are leaving the wound open, mostly unstitched as that is usually what fasciotomy is and it shall be a few more weeks for her at the hospital and then some more weeks of medical leave until she is fit enough to go back to work.. driving will be a problem.. but she shall have us by her side at every juncture of the journey.
We are thankful for all prayers and well wishes from all. We truly are grateful and glad we still have Abby with us and most importantly she is going to live to celebrate her 30th birthday in August.
Her internal organs are out of danger (hence the transfer out from ICU) and her blood levels are back to normal, well, almost normal.
And yes.. her initial diagnosis was dengue fever which she has contracted the second time in 6 years and neither of the remedies worked... not papaya leaf juice.. young papaya fruit sap.. crabs soup and flesh... not frog with bitter gourd.. not this not that.. we have literally tried everything up till her platlets dropped to below critical to dangerously low below 15.
What helped were constant blood transfusion alternating with platelet transfusions and lots of prayer and positive thoughts sent her way. She was drifting in and out of consciousness as her organs were under attack, especially her liver, which caused her blood to not be like us normal people hence causing compartment syndrome.
If you see the link above.. it must be performed within 6 hours of it happening yet Abby only had it done after 2 days as her blood works were not good enough for surgery or else she will risk excessive bleeding to death. Hence the death of her muscles. She is very lucky in the sense that they didn't have to sacrifice her arm in order to save her life, i.e. amputation after allowing the arm to die. She saw the scar this morning when they were doing dressing and it was depressing but she quickly forced herself to accept the scar and the still open wound as part of her now. We are so proud of how brave she is.
Doctors said her condition was very critical where mortality rate is high especially with an almost definite mortality for the very young or very old... and we were right to fear her death. She fought and won and for that we are truly thankful.
If she is to get dengue the third time it will be even more dangerous. She is renting with her husband at a landed property, single storey terrace house now. My parents are persuading them to move to higher floors, i.e. condominiums when she is discharged but we shall cross the bridge when we come there.
Her husband also contracted dengue at the same time and recovered quickly within a week with lots of 100Plus and rest at home. No need for the remedies, etc. We were quite taken aback by some well wishes who vehemently preached certain remedies and implied that our mother had not tried hard enough to save her. God knows how much we tried and to what extent our dear mother has tried for her youngest daughter to the extent of begging for the ingredients from the gardens of strangers.
At our most worrying and trying times, it got too much for our parents to even answer phone calls or reply to messages on whatsapp or even meet and talk with another person... each time they relate to an individual about our sister's condition, they will be sad and tears tend to fall.. imagine you have 100 enquiries and you need to cry 100 times... it was really emotionally taxing.. if your queries went unanswered during that period, we are truly sorry but for our sanity and to keep things together... we needed to shut out the world for awhile.
With Abby's life out of danger now, our family can now sleep soundly for the first time in nearly 2 weeks.
AGAIN, THANK YOU for your support and we believe every prayer counts in her recovery. With every worst scenario that was presented to us, many u-turns were provided that somehow our sister managed to scrap through with the slightest margin.. and we were met with much kindness, many sympathetic nurses and doctors, much support from every one, most who have never known Abby personally and many who donated blood to replenish the hospital's blood bank for the general good, and the many prayers and well wishes from everyone whom we may not be able to name one by one... from the bottom of our hearts.. thank you. We saw the true human spirit and have not lost hope with humanity. We are truly blessed. Thank you for the help and prayers rendered from people from multiracial and multireligious backgrounds or denominations. We saw religious tolerance at its best when it is a matter of life and death.
THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR HUMANITY.
THANK YOU.
p/s- Aedes mosquito breeding grounds must be eliminated... Dengue is very real and it really can kill.
I would not wish this upon anyone or for any family to go through the grief or heartache of this illness.. And there is still no medicine for this. Forget the traditional remedies.. seek treatment from the government hospital immediately and get your blood tests done. My sister was initially rejected a blood test from a 24 hour clinic near our are in Setapak, we are still contemplating if we should pursue further action with that clinic with two very sarcastic locum doctors (visited twice in two consecutive evenings). Go straight to a hospital if you display the symptoms of dengue which may include high or low grade fever with extreme pain on your bones and joints and a terrible splitting headache and lethargy.
May all beings be well and happy.
Sabbe Satta Bhavantu Sukhitatha.
