BillLindau

Woman beats odds, surviving oft-fatal affliction

Photo by Bill Lindau
Celestina Jones shows the scars from the IVs in her arm during her stay in hospital, where she was treated for ARDS.Celestina Jones and ARDS
Woman beats odds, surviving oft-fatal affliction
From The Robeson Journal, May 28, 2008
By Bill Lindau\
Celestina Jones, her family and friends would make to declare Nov. 13 a national holiday.
That was the day she cheated death. For the second time in a month.
She and her family also had the best New Year’s Eve they ever had. That’s the day she was released from hospital after more than two months.
Jones, of Pembroke, came out of a coma Nov. 13 last year, after being treated for a deadly condition known as Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). This affliction affects the respiratory system and can affect the functioning of other organs in the body. Thousands of Americans suffer from it. At one time it resulted in the deaths of as many as 60 to 70 percent of those afflicted with it, according to health professionals.
Jones had been in hospital since Oct. 27, 2007, after her older son, Calvin, found her passed out on the bathroom floor. He called her husband, Gregory, at work, and when he could not get her to respond, her parents called 911, Celestina said in a recent interview.
Some months before that, she had hurt her back on the job, she said. Her physician put her on four medicines, and for further treatment, she went to another doctor and he gave her another medicine.
The Saturday morning after her appointment (Oct. 27, 2007), she passed out.
“When I got up, I was throwing up,” Jones said. “I ran to the bathroom and I passed out. Some of the vomit got into my lungs.”
This is when the nightmare began.
Jones said her husband called the home from work and became concerned when there was no answer. That’s when Calvin found his mother, unconscious, and Gregory and her parents arrived at the house and 911 was called.
“They said I would talk to them and go back out, talk to them and go back out,” Celestina said.
When the ambulance arrived, the men could not get the stretcher into the bathroom. They put her into a chair and toted the chair to the stretcher.\
“Once they got me out to the ambulance, they had to shock me,” Celestina said.
Celestina was transported to Southeastern Regional Medical Center. Two days later, she was moved to the intensive care unit. And two days after that, on Oct. 31, she had trouble breathing, went into a coma and was put on life support, because of the vomit she had swallowed.
Her kidneys had quit working. And her lungs stopped functioning. “She couldn’t get anything in or out,” said her mother, Carolyn Hunt.
Celestina remembers very little of her time in hospital; her family kept a journal of that time, chronicling her treatment and condition. Details from the journal are mentioned with permission of Jones and her family, which includes her husband Gregory, her twin sister Celestine Hunt, and their parents, Carolyn and Lathan Hunt.
She was in the intensive care unit most of the time. As part of the treatment for ARDS, she was put on a paralyzing medication that doctors use on most patients, according to information posted on the Web site, www.ards.com. This is where ARDS is explained in better detail than space in this article allows.
The family said on Nov. 4 they asked the attending physician to move Celestina to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill.
“They told us that by moving you we could lose you,” her sister Celestine wrote in the journal, addressing it to Celestina. “They told us that by moving you we could lose you. I even called the doctor in Chapel Hill myself and spoke to him personally and he said that as unable as you were to move (sic) would likely kill you.”
Celestina experienced a tremendous amount of weight gain, attributed to the organ failure. She went from 141 pounds when she went in to 216 by Nov. 5, her sister said.
She had a really close call Nov. 5-6, according to the journal. Following a breathing treatment, and the cleaning of her tubes “your machines went crazy and you were sweating bullets.”\
The staff asked the family to leave the room. Later the staff told the family that after a technician cleaned her tubes, a large piece of mucus or other material evidently got hung in the tube and she was not getting any air.
It was hours before she could receive visitors. “We were crying and praying and scared….That was so scary for us,” Celestine Hunt said.
On Nov. 6, Jones’s heart “started going crazy” and the staff had to shock her. The family said the staff cut her leg and ran a line straight to her heart. They also took her off the paralyzing medication and told the family she should be waking up “any time now.”Later that day, hopes began to fade again, however. “The doctors aren’t giving us much hope,” the journal read. The doctors said she should have been awake by this time.
Three days later, the doctors gave her an EEG (electroencephalogram). The family said the doctors said inconclusive. They began giving her kidney dialysis that day, because her kidneys “aren’t working well.”
On Saturday, Nov. 10, “you scared us again,” the journal read. That morning, Jones’s heart rate went up to 225 and the staff had to shock her again.
“I know you are fighting so hard to stay with us,” the journal said. “Don’t give up now.”
On Monday, Nov. 12, another EEG turned out to be inconclusive, the journal said.
To add to the bleakness of the situation, the staff had attempted to waken Jones by inflicting pain, the family said. This included squirting a syringe full of water into hear ears and smashing the cuticles.“
One doctor said, ‘We’ve done everything we could. The rest is up to you,’” said her mother. “They told us to pray to whatever god you could.”
Nov. 13, 2007The next day, the miracle happened.
Jones woke up.
“The doctors’ jaws dropped,” Celestine said. “They couldn’t believe it. The nurses were all cheering.”
“All the doctors said it was a miracle she was still alive,” she added.
Jones moved her head and arm, and stayed awake “a long time”.
“I think every one of us and you, nurses and doctors were drying,” the journal read.
Other family members, including Jones’s sister Anna and Jones’s sons Calvin and Craig, entered the room. When Jones saw them, “she had the biggest grin,” Celestine said.
Anna lives in California and had flown to Raleigh-Durham Airport that morning.
One of the possible reasons for Jones’ survival and ultimate recovery was that the body would send the blood to the organs to live, Carolyn Hunt said.
“Nobody told us to do this, it must’ve been by instinct, but we’d massage her feet to keep the blood going,” Hunt said.
There remained a big question mark for her family. Did the illness affect her brain?
To backtrack a bit, Celestina had been summoned to jury duty for Nov. 5, her sister said. She said the family showed the court a note from the doctor and that was taken care of.
Soon after she came to, Celestina asked about it.
She did not have her voice back; she would not be able to talk again for almost a month afterwards, but she mouthed her communication, Celestine said.
“She mouthed to me, ‘Did you take care of my jury duty?’” Celestine said.
“I knew her brain was good when she asked me about jury duty. I knew in my heart that she had no brain damage.”
“That was the thing I was praying for (after Jones came to), don’t let anything happen that’ll affect her brain,” said her mother.
Jones had a lot of people pulling for her the whole time. Not only were her family members around 24/7, but friends and members of her church came to visit. Members of her husband’s vast family came in as well.
Other journals were kept, including one with blessings from her pastor and their friends, and another with well-wishing comments to her from the hospital staff.
“One time she had five different ministers with her praying,” Carolyn Hunt said.
A lot of people prayed: Family, friends, doctors, nurses, technicians, even total strangers.
“I didn’t refuse nobody who wanted to come in and pray,” Carolyn Hunt said. “We filled up the whole waiting room, just about,” Celestine said. “People from the church were there round the clock. Cards, photos and other things were ordinarily not allowed to be taped onto the walls of the room, but the staff made an exception in Jones’s case, Celestine said.
After Nov. 13
The worst was apparently over for Celestina Jones, but there was still some work to be done. It was almost a month before she could talk again, for one thing.
After she came to, recovery was slow but steady, according to the journal. On Friday, Nov. 16, surgeons removed the ventilator from Jones’s mouth to her throat and put a feeding tube into her stomach.
On Nov. 28, she was transferred to Regency Hospital in Florence , S.C., to be weaned off the ventilator and begin her rehabilitation.
A day later, Jones was sitting in a chair. On Dec. 4, she was off the ventilator.
On Dec. 5, Jones spoke her first words since Oct. 31.
“We cried. It was so sweet to hear your voice,” the journal read.
On Dec. 6, Jones walked without a walker for the first time since she was in hospital.
The staff plugged the trach (tube to Jones’s throat) and soon removed it.
“You came home Dec. 31,” said the last entry in the journal.
The Florence hospital, where she stayed until her release, let her come home for Christmas, but she had to go back that night.
Jones continued her rehabilitation afterwards. These days, she tries to maintain a regular fitness program.
She and the family know that her survival from ARDS was a true team effort. She praised Dr. Charles Beasley, who specializes in lungs and other respiratory afflictions.
“He was the best,” Jones said.
Other physicians, specialists and members of the intensive care unit were named, including Drs. David Allen and Richard Woerndle, among others.
“She beat the odds,” Celestine said.

posted by Bill Lindau @ 6:18 PM