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Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2009/12/saginaw_township_woman_survive.html
Saginaw Township woman survives near death from H1N1 flu virus: 'I won't take anything for granted anymore'
By Barrie Barber | The Saginaw News
December 13, 2009, 4:01AM
Debra Westbrook woke up in the hospital. It wasn?t where she expected to be.
The 53-year-old Saginaw Township woman and her doctors didn?t immediately know it, but she said the ailment that triggered her lungs to fill with fluid and her weight to balloon to an additional 120 pounds from about 180 was H1N1, known commonly as the swine flu virus.
She acquired acute respiratory distress syndrome, which severely damaged her lungs. She was in a medically induced coma for two weeks and unconscious another 10 weeks because of heavy medications, she said.
?When I first woke up and came to, I didn?t know where I was,? Westbrook said. Doctors told her husband, Archie, she had a slim chance of survival. ?Medically, on paper, she is supposed to be dead,? he said. ?Black, white, brown ... everybody was praying for Debra Westbrook, and that?s why she?s here today.?
His wife has recovered, though not entirely. It?s difficult for her to talk and breath, and she coughs frequently.
?I won?t take anything for granted anymore,? said Debra Westbrook, who returned home in September. ?Things can happen to you.?
Medical authorities have told her she may take three to six more months to fully recover.
Westbrook said she didn?t have any serious or underlying health problems before H1N1 struck. ?It can happen to anybody,? she said.
?I always felt like she was going to pull through because I always knew she was a strong individual,? said Dorothy A. Allen of Saginaw Township, a friend for 39 years who visited Debra often in Ann Arbor.
?We looked at death right in the eyes, and we told death we are not going to accept (it),? Archie Westbrook said. ?It was the best Thanksgiving we had, and this is the best Christmas we?re going to have because we have her.?
Debra Westbrook?s 14-week journey at the hospital began in June at Covenant Medical Center in Saginaw. She took her 8-year-old son, Jardin, to the hospital because he had difficulty breathing. Medical personnel diagnosed him with pneumonia. He was released two weeks later.
Similar problems continued for the boy?s mother, who entered the hospital shortly after her son.
?He got better,? Archie Westbrook said. ?She got worse.?
?Everything goes ballistic,? said the 57-year-old husband, who already was grappling with a layoff from his job as a maintenance supervisor at Flint Powertrain North in May. ?She starts coughing nonstop.?
At Covenant, nurses quickly placed his wife in the intensive care unit. Diagnosis showed she had spotted pneumonia in both lungs. She was put on a ventilator. She had to receive daily dialysis treatment when her kidneys failed, the family said.
?Every day, she was getting worse despite what we did, and after three days, she was in ICU on a respirator,? said Dr. Ray Mangulabnan, who treated Westbrook at Covenant and said H1N1 caused the medical problems.
?The nurse said she had a storm blowing through her like Hurricane Katrina raging through New Orleans,? Archie Westbrook said.
Little more than a week later, Debra Westbrook was airlifted to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor to treat her deteriorating condition.
At the ailment?s worst, Debra Westbrook was put on a high frequency oscillator breathing machine which pumped out 100 puffs of oxygen every minute, Mangulabnan said. When even that failed to do enough, U-M doctors put her on an artificial lung machine for 10 days to clear her lungs.
?That?s basically what saved her life,? Archie Westbrook said.
The list of medical problems grew long. She suffered a ?mini-stroke,? and she?s ?learning how to write all over again,? she said. Her malady has changed how she looks at the world. She takes precautions, ever mindful the virus could lurk nearly anywhere.
?It?s something you don?t want to go through,? she said. ?Now, when I go in Walmart, I take the towel and wipe off the buggy because you just never know.?
Even with the difficult recovery, the family counts its blessings. ?I have a strong will to live,? Debra Westbrook said. ?I have a lot to do yet.?
Saginaw Township woman survives near death from H1N1 flu virus: 'I won't take anything for granted anymore'
By Barrie Barber | The Saginaw News
December 13, 2009, 4:01AM
Debra Westbrook woke up in the hospital. It wasn?t where she expected to be.
The 53-year-old Saginaw Township woman and her doctors didn?t immediately know it, but she said the ailment that triggered her lungs to fill with fluid and her weight to balloon to an additional 120 pounds from about 180 was H1N1, known commonly as the swine flu virus.
She acquired acute respiratory distress syndrome, which severely damaged her lungs. She was in a medically induced coma for two weeks and unconscious another 10 weeks because of heavy medications, she said.
?When I first woke up and came to, I didn?t know where I was,? Westbrook said. Doctors told her husband, Archie, she had a slim chance of survival. ?Medically, on paper, she is supposed to be dead,? he said. ?Black, white, brown ... everybody was praying for Debra Westbrook, and that?s why she?s here today.?
His wife has recovered, though not entirely. It?s difficult for her to talk and breath, and she coughs frequently.
?I won?t take anything for granted anymore,? said Debra Westbrook, who returned home in September. ?Things can happen to you.?
Medical authorities have told her she may take three to six more months to fully recover.
Westbrook said she didn?t have any serious or underlying health problems before H1N1 struck. ?It can happen to anybody,? she said.
?I always felt like she was going to pull through because I always knew she was a strong individual,? said Dorothy A. Allen of Saginaw Township, a friend for 39 years who visited Debra often in Ann Arbor.
?We looked at death right in the eyes, and we told death we are not going to accept (it),? Archie Westbrook said. ?It was the best Thanksgiving we had, and this is the best Christmas we?re going to have because we have her.?
Debra Westbrook?s 14-week journey at the hospital began in June at Covenant Medical Center in Saginaw. She took her 8-year-old son, Jardin, to the hospital because he had difficulty breathing. Medical personnel diagnosed him with pneumonia. He was released two weeks later.
Similar problems continued for the boy?s mother, who entered the hospital shortly after her son.
?He got better,? Archie Westbrook said. ?She got worse.?
?Everything goes ballistic,? said the 57-year-old husband, who already was grappling with a layoff from his job as a maintenance supervisor at Flint Powertrain North in May. ?She starts coughing nonstop.?
At Covenant, nurses quickly placed his wife in the intensive care unit. Diagnosis showed she had spotted pneumonia in both lungs. She was put on a ventilator. She had to receive daily dialysis treatment when her kidneys failed, the family said.
?Every day, she was getting worse despite what we did, and after three days, she was in ICU on a respirator,? said Dr. Ray Mangulabnan, who treated Westbrook at Covenant and said H1N1 caused the medical problems.
?The nurse said she had a storm blowing through her like Hurricane Katrina raging through New Orleans,? Archie Westbrook said.
Little more than a week later, Debra Westbrook was airlifted to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor to treat her deteriorating condition.
At the ailment?s worst, Debra Westbrook was put on a high frequency oscillator breathing machine which pumped out 100 puffs of oxygen every minute, Mangulabnan said. When even that failed to do enough, U-M doctors put her on an artificial lung machine for 10 days to clear her lungs.
?That?s basically what saved her life,? Archie Westbrook said.
The list of medical problems grew long. She suffered a ?mini-stroke,? and she?s ?learning how to write all over again,? she said. Her malady has changed how she looks at the world. She takes precautions, ever mindful the virus could lurk nearly anywhere.
?It?s something you don?t want to go through,? she said. ?Now, when I go in Walmart, I take the towel and wipe off the buggy because you just never know.?
Even with the difficult recovery, the family counts its blessings. ?I have a strong will to live,? Debra Westbrook said. ?I have a lot to do yet.?